{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34410/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34410","id":"gutenberg_34410","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34410","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Adventure","Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Fairies -- Juvenile fiction","Fairy tales","Fantasy literature"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE\nTREASURE\nOF THE\nISLE OF MIST\n\nBY\nW. W. TARN\n\n[Illustration]\n\nG. P. PUTNAM'S SONS\nNEW YORK AND LONDON\nThe Knickerbocker Press\n1920\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1920, BY\nW. W. TARN\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nA FAIRY TALE FOR\nMY DAUGHTER\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n  CHAPTER                                 PAGE\n  I.    THE GIFT OF THE SEARCH               1\n  II.   THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE            14\n  III.  THE HAUNTED CAVE                    31\n  IV.   THE URCHIN VANISHES                 47\n  V.    THE OREAD                           88\n  VI.   THE KING OF THE WOODCOCK           111\n  VII.  FIONA IN THE FAIRY-WORLD           131\n  VIII. FIONA FINDS HER TREASURE           181\n\n\n\n\nThe Treasure of the Isle of Mist\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE GIFT OF THE SEARCH\n\n\nThe Student and Fiona lived in a little gray house on the shores of a\ngray sea-loch in the Isle of Mist. The Student was a thin man with a\nstoop to his shoulders, which old Anne MacDermott said came of reading\nbooks; but really it was because he had been educated at a place where\nthis is expected of you. Fiona, when she was doing nothing else, used\nto help Anne to keep house, rather jerkily, in the way a learned man\nmay be supposed to like. She was a long-legged creature of fifteen,\nwho laughed when her father threatened her with school on the\nmainland, and she had a warm heart and a largish size in shoes.\nSometimes they had dinner; sometimes nobody remembered in time, and\nthey had sunset and salt herrings, with a bowl of glorious yellow\ncorn-daisies to catch the sunset.\n\nIt was Anne who saw the old hawker crossing the field behind the\nhouse, and burst in on the bookroom to inform the Student that he\nwanted buttons. She was met by a patient remonstrance on her ambiguous\nuse of language:\n\n\"For,\" said the Student, \"if you mean that buttons are lacking to me,\nthere may be something to be said for you; but if you mean that I\ndesire buttons, then indeed I do not desire buttons; I desire . . .\"\n\nWhereon Anne fled, and went out to meet the hawker. The frail old man,\nbending under his pack, was crossing the meadow behind the house,\nbrushing his way through the September clover. His white hair was\nuncovered save for the huge umbrella which he carried alike in sun\nand rain; but youth still lingered in his eyes, which were bright as\nthe dawn and deep as the sea-caves. Behind him followed a little\nrough-haired terrier, black as jet, his inseparable companion. At the\ndoor he unslung his pack, and, leaving Anne to select her buttons,\npassed straight through, knocked at the bookroom door, and went in.\n\nThe Student wheeled round in his chair and began to grope about.\n\n\"Have you seen my spectacles?\" he said. \"I can't see who you are till\nI put them on, and I can't put them on till you find them for me, for\nI can't see to find them myself unless I have them on. Pardon this\ninvolved sentence.\"\n\nThe old hawker picked up the missing spectacles and handed them over.\n\n\"You wouldn't remember me, in any case,\" he said. \"I last saw you\ntwenty-five years ago, when you were trying to dig at Verria. There\nwas an old man there, do you remember, being beaten by armed\nBashi-Bazouks, and you held them up with an empty revolver, and took\nthe old man to your camp and nursed him, and you said things to the\nTurkish Governor, and . . .\"\n\n\"My excavations came to an untimely end,\" said the Student. \"I always\nowed that old man a grudge for being beaten before my tent. Why\ncouldn't he have been beaten somewhere else? I should like to meet him\nagain and tell him precisely what I thought of his conduct.\"\n\n\"You have done both now,\" said the hawker. \"And it is his turn.\"\n\n\"Impossible,\" said the Student. \"He was as old twenty-five years ago\nas you are now.\"\n\n\"At my age,\" said the old man, \"one grows no older. No one who walks\nthe world as I do need ever grow any older. You can walk thirty miles\non Monday when you are twenty years old; good. If you can do it on\nMonday you can do it on Tuesday; and if on Tuesday, then on Wednesday;\ntherefore, by an easy reckoning, you can do it as well at eighty\nyears old as at twenty. Thus you never age.\"\n\n\"There's a flaw in that somewhere,\" said the Student. \"I know; it's\nthe Heap. How many grains of sand make a heap?\"\n\n\"How many buttons do you want?\" said the hawker. \"You saved my life\nonce; you shall have all the buttons you want for nothing.\"\n\n\"I thought you couldn't answer my question,\" said the Student. \"But we\nare getting on much too fast; we haven't really begun yet. I suppose\nyou came here to sell things? Anne seemed to know you, and she said I\nwanted buttons. I pointed out to her that her statement was either an\nuntruth or a truism, and equally objectionable in either sense; and\nnow you repeat it, just as I was beginning to consider you quite an\nintelligent person. By the way, who are you?\"\n\n\"I have a different name in most countries which I visit,\" said the\nold man. \"But by profession I sell buttons--and other things.\"\n\n\"What sort of things?\" said the Student.\n\n\"I have dreams,\" said the old man, \"dreams and the matter of dreams;\nimaginings of the impossible come true; the wonder of the hills at\nsunrise; the quest of unearthly treasure among the moon-flowers; the\nlook in the eyes of a child that trusts you.\"\n\nThe Student took off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes hard, and settled\nhis shoulders.\n\n\"I desire something very much,\" he said. \"If you can do all that, you\ncan give me what I desire.\"\n\nThe hawker frowned.\n\n\"You are a scholar,\" he said, \"and I can do nothing for scholars. You\nneed no ideal, for you have one. You need no dreams, for your life is\none. For you, the earth pours out hidden treasure, and the impossible\ncomes true day by day. What you desire just now is a long definite\ninscription to settle a controverted point in your favor. And if I\ncould give it you, just think how miserable you'd be. Nothing further\nto argue about, there; and several quite happy and contentious\nprofessors would be reduced to such straits that I don't know what\ncrimes you might all commit. You might even take to making money.\"\n\n\"If I wanted money,\" said the Student, \"I should, being an intelligent\nperson, at once proceed to make it. Then I should have to live in the\nbig house again, instead of letting it, and my precious time would be\nspent in arguing with my gardener and endeavoring to conceal my\nignorance from my chauffeur. As it is, we live anyhow, and I am\nhappy.\"\n\n\"Happiness doesn't score any points in the game,\" said the hawker.\n\"What good do you and your inscriptions do, anyway?\"\n\n\"That's not my job here,\" said the Student. \"That will come on\nafterwards. Besides, I don't want to do good. I am old-fashioned; why\nshould I take my neighbor by the throat and say, 'Let me do good to\nyou, or it shall be the worse for you and yours'? Besides, I can't do\ngood. You can't dot the wilderness with prosperous homesteads when\nhalf the years the oats don't ripen till the year after. Besides, I\ndo do good; I have let the big house to shooting tenants, and it's\nexcellent for their health. Besides seventeen other reasons, which I\ncan enumerate if you are able to bear them. Besides, Fiona is fond of\nme.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the old man softly, \"that's your real justification. And\nit's a great deal more than I could give you; my hawker's licence\ndoesn't cover the big things. How many buttons do you want?\"\n\nFiona came scrambling through the open window, and curled herself up\non the rug with her head on the Student's knee. The Student stroked\nher hair.\n\n\"Tell me what it's all about,\" she said.\n\n\"This gentleman,\" he said, \"once interrupted a very important piece of\nwork which I was doing, and I was just about to tell him exactly what\nI thought of him when you interrupted me.\"\n\nThe old hawker had risen and bowed courteously to the girl.\n\n\"My dear young lady,\" he said, \"I have been searching my pack for a\npresent for your father, and found nothing suitable. But perhaps I\ncould find something for you.\"\n\nFiona jumped up.\n\n\"Have you a hedgehog?\" was her question.\n\n\"I do not carry them with me, as a general thing,\" said the old man.\n\"No doubt one could be got. But why a hedgehog?\"\n\n\"I want one for the Urchin,\" she said. \"You see, it's his namesake.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said the old man, quite gravely. \"And who is the Urchin?\"\n\n\"The Urchin,\" said the Student, \"is a young rascal who is the son of\nmy shooting tenant. He plunders my daughter of all her possessions,\nand she abets him in every form of villainy.\"\n\n\"I do try to stop him throwing stones at things,\" said the girl.\n\n\"Here are hedgehogs,\" said the hawker. \"Isn't that lucky, now?\"\n\nPast the window came five hedgehogs in a solemn row, two big and\nthree little. Behind them, marshalling the procession, walked the\nblack terrier, with an eye of happy drollery.\n\n\"There's something wrong about those hedgehogs,\" said the girl. \"They\ndon't do things like that. I don't think I want a hedgehog any more,\nthank you. How did you make them do that? Is your dog a conjurer?\"\n\n\"I never harm anything,\" said the old man, \"so that many creatures\nwill come to me when I call. But I have better presents than that.\"\n\n\"Choose for her, my friend,\" said the Student.\n\nThe old man began talking to himself in a low voice.\n\n\"Youth she has,\" he said, \"and freedom, and the joy of life. Wonder\nalso, and dim imaginings of unseen things. And of the things which men\ndesire, fame and power are not worth giving, and love is not mine to\ngive. I have it. I give you the Search,\" he said. \"The search for the\ntreasure of the Isle of Mist. Others have searched for it before; and\nsome have found; but the treasure never grows less.\"\n\n\"That's splendid,\" said the girl. \"And when I find the treasure I will\nbuy my father seven great books which no one else wants to read, and\nhe will be perfectly happy.\"\n\n\"But I did not promise treasure,\" said the old man. \"I promised a\nsearch.\"\n\nFiona's face fell.\n\n\"Then am I not to find anything at the end of it?\" she asked.\n\nThe old man chuckled quietly.\n\n\"I did not say that either,\" he said. \"There _is_ a treasure, and you\nshall search for it; and you will find it if you are able. Many there\nare who helped to build it up. Cuchulain and the forgotten heroes who\nfought before Cuchulain; Ossian and the forgotten bards who sang\nbefore Ossian; Columba and the forgotten saints who died before\nColumba; each has added something to the pile. It is their treasure\nwhich you shall seek for; that is my gift to you.\"\n\n\"How shall I know where to begin?\" asked the girl. \"And may I take the\nUrchin with me?\"\n\n\"Whether you can take the Urchin with you or not depends on his\ncapacity to go,\" said the old man. \"And as to beginning, I think you\nwill find that the Search will begin itself, independently of you. It\nalways does. But I can give you something that will help you,\" and he\ntook out of his pocket a red copper bangle, rudely hammered out with\nsome rough implement, which he slipped over her wrist. \"That was made\nlong ago,\" he said, \"made by men to whom metal was a new toy, men who\nperhaps were nearer to the heart of things than we are.\"\n\n\"You will stay and have some dinner, will you not?\" said the Student.\n\"At least, if this is a dinner night. Fiona, is this a dinner night?\"\n\n\"I have my doubts,\" said the girl. \"Oat cake and honeysuckle, I\nexpect.\"\n\n\"And what better?\" said the old man. \"But I fear I could not dine with\nyou, were it ortolans and Tokay. For I may never eat beneath a roof.\nThe open moor is my dining hall, and the stars serve me. And the long\nwhite road is calling me even now. But I think that before the\ntreasure is found you will see me again.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE\n\n\n\"Man,\" said the Student, \"is a weird creature. He dimly remembers that\nhe began his evolution, not as a pair, but as a horde; and to the\nhorde he still seeks, forming huge crowds during his working days, and\non his holidays merely transferring the same crowds in their totality\nto some other place, accompanied by a great deal of purposeless noise.\nApart from his crowd he apparently feels chilly, and without noise\nunhappy. Nothing is more striking to the reflective mind than the\nabdication of civilization in the face of meaningless noises.\"\n\n\"Daddy,\" said Fiona, \"I want your advice on the matter of treasure\nhunting. For if two go together, they don't make a crowd, and they\nneedn't make a noise.\"\n\n\"Quote correctly,\" said the Student. \"What Homer said was, that if you\nand I went to look for a treasure, I, being a mere man, would find it\nat once by logical processes of induction and deduction, while you,\nbeing a superior woman, were losing yourself in the quicksands of the\nintuitive short cut.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said the girl, \"your word is law to me. Therefore deduce.\"\n\n\"Persiflage,\" said the Student, \"is not to be encouraged in young\nchildren. Remember that if you were to force me to do so I might come\nwith you, and then I should see exactly how you bungled the thing.\"\n\n\"But that's what I want you to do, daddy,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"I don't,\" said the Student. \"Though treasure hunting is quite an\nancient and respectable amusement. For treasure, some have descended\nthe crater of Popocatapetl; some have dived at Tobermory; some have\ndug in Kensington Gardens. Alexander found a treasure at Persepolis,\nand Essex lost another in Cadiz harbor. The treasure of the Incas lies\nhid in a Peruvian ravine, known but to two Indians at a time; the\nplunder which Alaric took from Rome is still beneath the river which\nhe diverted to guard it. No one has ever found the hoard of Captain\nKidd, or the gold carried in the Venetian galleon which sailed with\nthe Armada and went on the rocks in this loch. The pursuit of treasure\nis, therefore, no doubt, for the young, a legitimate pastime.\"\n\n\"Daddy,\" said Fiona, \"did one of the Armada ships really go ashore\nhere?\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear,\" said the Student. \"She was a great Venetian, called\nafter the Madonna of the Holy Cross, and she carried the doubloons\ncontributed by the Church.\"\n\n\"That's not the treasure the old man meant,\" said the girl.\n\n\"It is not,\" said the Student. \"We know all about the Venetian ship.\nThe crew were mostly knocked on the head, but the captain brought the\ndoubloons ashore and hid them. He himself was saved by my ancestor for\nthe time being, to whom he gave a map showing the place in the cave in\nwhich the treasure was hidden. He never came back for it. So far,\neverything proceeded on approved lines. Unhappily, my ancestor was a\ncareless sort of person, and gambled the plan away. We never heard any\nmore of it. It is, however, a family tradition that there was nothing\non the plan to identify the cave; and as this coast, and the islands\nin the loch, are honeycombed with caves, it would be of little use if\nwe had it. No one knows whereabouts the galleon went ashore. On calm\nnights her officers may be seen swimming round the cliffs, keeping\nguard still over their holy gold. Angus MacEachan saw one once, and\ntried to speak to him; but he turned into a seal, and just looked at\nAngus with large patient eyes; and Angus' boat was wrecked the week\nafter.\"\n\n\"And did you never search for the gold, daddy?\" asked Fiona.\n\n\"Never, my dear,\" he said. \"In the first place, it would mean a minute\nexamination of some 170 caves. In the second place, half of the caves\nare not mine. In the third place, it is not the kind of treasure I\nwant. In the fourth place, I haven't time. In the fifth place, I am\nmorally certain it is not there now. In the sixth place, the\nGovernment would claim it as treasure-trove. And in the seventh and\nlast place, I never thought about it till you asked me.\"\n\n\"I'm not getting any further with _my_ treasure hunting, daddy,\" said\nFiona. \"Let's go out together and start.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said the Student, \"it's your search, not mine. It's no use\nmy trying to come with you. And I have a fancy that it won't begin\nlike that.\"\n\n\"Can you tell me how to begin then, daddy?\" she asked.\n\n\"I suppose by taking no notice of it,\" he said. \"It was to begin\nitself, wasn't it? And I have an uncomfortable suspicion that you hunt\nthis kind of treasure by turning round and going the other way. So I\nthink you'd better run out and find the Urchin, and I'll get back to\nmy inscriptions.\"\n\nThe Urchin was Fiona's principal ally; a troublesome ally, owing to\nhis propensity for throwing stones. She found him now on the shore,\nsteadily bombarding a shore lark, that would move a little way out of\nrange and then sit down again, affording a splendid target. Luckily\nthe enthusiasm of the persecutor in pursuit was well matched by the\ninaccuracy of his aim.\n\n\"Urchin,\" she called out, \"if you hurt that bird the Little People\nwill take you; I thought I'd knocked that into you all right, even if\nyou _are_ English and slow in the uptake.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said the Urchin with a grin. \"We conquered you, anyway.\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" said the girl, \"it was we who annexed you. If\nyour people were as bad shots as you, Urchin, it must have been quite\neasy. You can't hit a bird sitting.\"\n\n\"Can't I?\" said the Urchin. \"You watch.\" Another fling, and horrors!\nthe shore lark rolled over, twittering helplessly and miserably.\n\nFiona was across the rocks like a young goat; and when the Urchin,\ncontrite but defiant, arrived, she had the wounded bird in her hands\nand was holding it to her breast, feeling gently for its hurt. It lay\nquite still, panting, and watching her with quick bright eyes.\n\n\"Broken wing,\" she said. \"I believe it will mend. Urchin, you are a\nmere beast. You'd better go home; I don't want ever to see you again.\"\n\nThe Urchin turned scarlet.\n\n\"That's just like a girl,\" he said. \"First you tell me I can't hit the\nold bird, which is the same thing as telling me to hit it; and then\nwhen I do hit it you turn round on me and call names; and all the time\nyou're just as bad as I am.\" And the Urchin turned and stalked off,\nan heroic figure with the mien of a Marcus Curtius about to save his\ncountry by leaping into the gulf. Unhappily there was a real gulf, and\nthe boy, head in air, rolled neatly into it, and emerged from between\ntwo rocks, dripping and no longer heroic, rubbing a torn stocking and\na scraped shin.\n\nIt was too much for Fiona's gravity.\n\n\"Urchin,\" she called, \"come back here, _quick_.\" And as the unhappy\nUrchin stood in doubt, hither and thither dividing the swift mind, she\nslid over the rocks and caught him. \"My fault,\" she said, \"and I'm\nsorry all the way through. Now I'll mend you first, and then we must\nmend the bird.\"\n\n\"And then what'll we do?\" said the boy. \"Let's do something harmless\nfor a bit, hunt for shells or shrimps or . . .\"\n\n\"Treasure,\" suggested Fiona, rather shyly. And by the time they had\nreached the house, and she had repaired the Urchin, and disposed the\nwounded bird as comfortably as possible, the boy had been put in\npossession of the essential facts of the case.\n\n\"Mar-vellous,\" was the Urchin's comment. \"Now, don't you see, Fiona?\nyou can have your treasure when we find it, and I'll have the Spanish\ntreasure when we find it, and there we both are. I want lots and lots\nand lots of those doubloons.\"\n\n\"What for?\" said Fiona.\n\n\"Gun,\" said the Urchin. \"Donald Ruadh has an old gun which he would\nsell me for two pounds. He says one barrel shoots all right sometimes.\nAnd I would use the rest of the doubloons to buy cartridges, and then\nI could kill curlews.\"\n\n\"You little wretch,\" said the girl. \"You won't kill my curlews while\nI'm about. And anyhow your old gun would probably blow you up first.\nAnd anyhow you haven't got the doubloons yet. And they're not yours if\nyou do find them.\"\n\n\"Whose would they be?\" asked the Urchin.\n\n\"I suppose my father's,\" said Fiona. \"But it depends on which cave\nthey were in.\"\n\n\"Come on, then,\" said the boy. \"I'm going to ask him for them.\"\n\nThe Student took the interruption good-humoredly.\n\n\"I am in the second century,\" he said. \"Doubloons have not yet been\ncoined. As to these doubloons, I am quite sure they are not there,\nwherever 'there' may be; but if they are there, I have no objection to\nthe Urchin fighting the Government for them. Urchin, would you like a\ndeed?\"\n\nAnd, to the delight of the Urchin, the Student proceeded to make out a\ndocument, which called on all men to know that the said Student\nthereby assigned to the said Urchin all the estate, right, title, and\ninterest, if any, of the said Student in and to a certain treasure of\ndoubloons or other coins once carried in the galleon called _Our Lady\nof the Holy Cross_ were the same a little more or less (\"all good\ndeeds get that in somewhere,\" said the Student) to hold to the said\nUrchin and his heirs (\"but I don't suppose the heirs will see much of\nit\") to the intent that he might become a wiser and a better Urchin\nand not interrupt the said Student any more when he wanted to work.\nThis being done, the Student signed his name at the end, made a\nbeautiful blot of hot red sealing wax and put his signet ring on it,\nand made Fiona sign her name as witness (\"which is probably not\nlegal,\" he explained cheerfully); then he handed over the deed to the\nrejoicing Urchin, with the remark that it was quite as good as many\nlawyers' deeds, and drove the pair of them out of the bookroom.\n\n\"Good,\" said the Urchin. \"Now I've a treasure just the same as you.\"\n\n\"If we find them,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"Well, let's go and start hunting for them at any rate,\" said the boy.\n\n\"Pardon me,\" said the shore lark, \"if I interrupt; but you might be\nthe better of a few hints.\"\n\nFiona dropped on her knees and took the little bird in her hands\nagain.\n\n\"So you can talk,\" she said. \"That's jolly. You've a first-rate chance\nof returning good for evil, and making us feel worms.\"\n\n\"Don't talk of worms,\" said the shore lark, \"you have entirely omitted\nto provide me with any. Send him to get some, and I'll tell you\nsomething. He can't understand what I'm saying, anyhow.\"\n\n\"Urchin,\" said the girl, \"he's asking for worms. Go and get him some.\"\n\n\"One would think you and he could talk to each other,\" said the boy.\n\"Silly, I call it, going on like that. I suppose that's what girls\ndo.\"\n\n\"Urchin,\" said Fiona, \"when you and I have a row, what happens?\"\n\n\"_You_ happen,\" said the Urchin. \"You've three years' pull; 'tisn't\nfair; just like a girl, to go and have three years' pull of a chap.\"\n\n\"Stop grousing,\" said the girl, \"and get me the worms, there's a dear\nlittle boy.\"\n\nThe Urchin flung the nearest book at her, missed as usual, and, having\nthus made his honor white, departed, declaring in simpler language\nthat the love of worms was the root of all evil.\n\n\"I can't tell you much,\" said the shore lark, \"but one sometimes picks\nup things, hopping about, and I heard you say treasure. If you mean\nthe Venetian ship, don't start without consulting the finner. He is\nvery old, and I believe that he knows everything that happens in this\nloch.\"\n\n\"I don't really mean that,\" said Fiona. \"That's half a jest. I mean my\nown search, the search for the treasure of the Isle of Mist.\"\n\n\"We have all heard of it,\" said the shore lark, \"and we all know that\nyou cannot find it by looking for it. All I can tell you is this: the\ncurlews have a tradition that the last man who found it went up a\nhill. That is what they tell each other when they call in the spring;\nand I believe they know.\"\n\n\"They are like the spirits of the hills themselves,\" said Fiona.\n\"Tell me why it is I can understand you.\"\n\n\"I have no idea,\" said the shore lark. \"I am only a little bird, and I\ndon't know very much. I chanced speaking to you because I wanted\nworms.\"\n\nThe girl slipped across into the bookroom.\n\n\"Daddy,\" she said, \"come back out of the second century, and tell me\nwhy I can understand the shore lark.\"\n\nThe Student looked up with a patient smile in far-away eyes.\n\n\"It isn't time to come back yet,\" he said. \"And I have not fully\ngrasped your meaning. You appear to refer to some conversation with\nsome bird. There are precedents, of course. For instance, the\nphilosopher Empedocles, having been a bird himself in a former life,\nremembered their speech; he ended by leaping into AEtna. Siegfried\nalso, having bathed in the blood of Fafnir, followed the voice of a\nbird of the wood; he ended by losing his love and his life. There was\nonce a sailor who took the advice of a parrot, and was hanged. Birds\nare light-minded, as the poet Aristophanes discovered; and it would\nseem that little good comes of talking to them.\"\n\n\"My shore lark is a darling,\" said Fiona. \"And I don't intend to be\nhanged.\"\n\n\"That,\" said the Student, \"is as Providence pleases. One never knows,\nas my poor ancestor said when he fell into a bear-trap and found the\nbear there before him.\"\n\n\"O daddy,\" said the girl, \"did he really? And what happened?\"\n\n\"This ancestor of mine,\" said the Student, \"was a very strong man. If\nhe had not been, someone else would have killed him first, and he\nwould not have been my ancestor; the other man would have been someone\nelse's ancestor, so to speak. Being a very strong man, he naturally\nkilled the bear. He must have, or he would not have lived to be my\nancestor. In those days everyone lived in caves, and he lived in a\ncave too; and he always killed the other man, sometimes fairly,\nsometimes, I regret to say, otherwise. He courted my ancestress by\nknocking her down from behind with the blunt end of a stone ax, a\nmethod which I do not defend; but when her senses returned she told\nhim he had acted like a man, and they became a most devoted couple.\nThis was partly due, no doubt, to the fact that he never saw the\nmeaning of the things she said; she took good care that he shouldn't,\nfor though slow of wit he was handy with his ax. Their life I think\nmust have been very happy till one day he found a red stone which he\ncould heat and shape with his ax, and he hammered out that copper\nbracelet you're wearing; and then came the deluge, for metal meant\nmagic then, as you know. Next day my ancestress found him conversing\nwith the local vulture; within a week he was giving exhibitions in the\nother caves with the vulture's assistance; in a month he had become\nthe tribal god; and about two years after, owing to the persistent\nfailure of some of his magic to come off, he was, for a brief moment,\nthe tribal banquet. Now you know what comes of talking to shore\nlarks.\"\n\n\"Daddy,\" she said, \"you can't know if that's true or not, can you?\"\n\n\"It may not all be what _you_ call true,\" said the Student, \"but it's\ntrue in quite a lot of ways. It's true psychologically, and\nanthropologically, and palaeethnologically; and that does to start\nwith. And I certainly _had_ ancestors. And there _is_ a bracelet. And\nyou _were_ talking strange words about a shore lark. And you must\nreally take care, my dear daughter; for you _ought_ now to become a\ntribal priestess, and be hurled from a high place into the sea the\nfirst season that the herring fail.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE HAUNTED CAVE\n\n\nA sunlit sheet of sea, violet and azure, clothed in slender cloud\nshadows and heaving gently to the long Atlantic ground-swell. Up\nthrough the calm water, to meet the eye of the gazer, came the green\nclearness of stone, and blinks of unveined sand showing white between\nthe brown tangled blades of the great oar-weed; and you might see a\nschool of little cuddies, heads all one way, playing hide and seek in\nthe sea forest, and caring no whit for the clumsy armored crab beneath\nthem, who crawled sideways, a laborious patch of color in the\nshimmering transparency. Up out of the deep water the gray rocks rose\nclear and fine, a mass of platforms and pinnacles, roughened with\nbarnacles and tufted with dulse, whose crimson leaves floated and\nswung in the white foam of the lisping swell; and above the rocks and\nbeyond the sea's reach the cliff stood up black, showing all the\nstrata that had gone to the making of it outlined with little patches\nof coarse grass. On one such patch grazed without concern a sheep\nwhich had slipped over, happy in her ignorance of the fact that she\ncould never be drawn up again alive; the wiser raven overhead was\nclanging away with short barks to tell his mate. On a ridge on the\ncliff side sat a pair of young scarfs, almost invisible save when they\ntwisted their long necks about like two snakes, trying to make up\ntheir minds to follow their mother, who had just flopped clumsily into\nthe water, feet first, and had turned there and then into a miracle of\neasy grace, as she used her head to dash the spray over her back. Out\nat sea a solan rose steadily in a sweeping spiral, the white and black\nof him glittering in the sun; suddenly he checked, reversed engines,\nand fell plump like an inverted cross, his long raking wings clapping\nto as he struck the water; a moment, and he was up, and there sat,\nchoking and gobbling over his fish, ere he rose again in his majestic\nrings.\n\nThe two children had grounded their boat on a little pebble beach\nbetween the rocks, and were sitting on a big tuft of sea pinks,\nmunching handfuls of the sweet dulse and watching the solan at his\nfishing. They were by way of fishing themselves, but the afternoon was\nas yet too early and too clear for them. The Urchin had a pile of\nstones beside him, and was apparently trying to see how many times in\ntwenty he could miss a large and obvious spur of rock. Fiona had a\nbook of poetry, and was making intermittent efforts to read; but the\nworld was too full of things to give poetry a fair chance.\n\nThe Urchin threw his last stone away.\n\n\"Silly sitting here,\" he said; \"come and explore.\"\n\nSo, scrambling and sliding, the two made their way across the rocks,\nstopping at every rock pool to raise its fringe of weed with careful\nhands and investigate the wonder of the little world below; sea\nflowers of every hue, white and green, gray and orange, purple and\nwhite and gray and purple again, some smooth and satisfied, others\nwith tentacles greedily awash, that could be induced to suck at a\nsmall finger dexterously inserted; sea shells of every contour, some\nliving and clutching at the rock, some cast off and dead, others again\nprotruding alien claws, resurrected to a life of artificial movement\nby the little hermit crabs whose tails they sheltered; here and there\nthe spiky pink globe of a sea urchin, waiting for the tide to float\nhim off. And in one deep little pot, with sides green like a grotto of\nferns, they found a miniature battle. A small green crab, who had cast\nhis shell, sat humped in a recess of the grotto, a thing soft and\nvulnerable, a delight to the enemy; and in front of him, excited and\ntransparent, were half a dozen shrimps, the horn on each forehead\npointed at him; from time to time some young gallant would dash in to\nprod the helpless monster, and at once backwater again into the ranks\nof his friends. The crab bore his torment with a patience born of the\nknowledge that each minute his new carapace was hardening; the shrimps\nhad no wit to count the cost, or reckon the odds that the rising tide\nmight bear them away in safety from the day of vengeance.\n\nOn hands and knees, not daring to breathe on the limpid surface of the\npool, the children watched the little drama. From the cliff top the\nheated air rose dancing into the sky. So still were earth and air and\nsea that the old finner's rise sounded as though the cliff were\nfalling. He had worked nearer in to the rocks than seemed possible for\nhis ninety feet of blubber and muscle, and as his black side rolled\nover, the water about him boiled like a pot; but he did not splash,\nfor he had been well brought up and always knew what his tail was\ndoing, though it was so far away.\n\n\"Shiver these rocks,\" he began in a rage, as he flung two fountains\nout of his nose. Then he caught sight of Fiona and the gleam of the\nred bracelet.\n\n\"Oh my fins and flippers!\" he spouted. \"I ask pardon, young lady; I\nhaven't the manners of a grampus. And they told me about you.\"\n\n\"Who's they?\" asked Fiona, ungrammatically.\n\n\"Friends at Court, friends at Court,\" said the finner. \"What a thing\nto have. 'No need of the old sailorman,' said I. But they said I must\ngo. And I've scraped the barnacles off my precious tail. Will it run\nto some tobacco?\"\n\n\"Will what run?\" said the girl. \"Your tail? What is it you want?\"\n\n\"Hints are wasted, I see,\" said the whale. \"'One question,' said I.\nOnly one. But magic is magic, you know, even for a tough old\nsailorman. Come now, one question. I'm too far inshore for my\nliking.\"\n\nFiona understood.\n\n\"Is it about my treasure?\" she said.\n\n\"Yours, or that boy's there, whichever you like,\" said the whale. \"But\nonly one, only one.\"\n\nFor about two seconds Fiona did some hard mental drill. Then she said:\n\n\"Will you please tell me where the Urchin can find his treasure?\"\n\n\"You do have luck,\" said the finner. \"Think of it, then. O you little\nfishes, think of it. If you'd asked the other, I didn't know the\nanswer. Wouldn't have got an answer, and my tail all scraped for\nnothing. And this one, my great-great-grandmother saw it all, and\nnobody knows here but me and the seals and one man, and he's too fat\nto count. West cave, Scargill Island; and bring you luck, my dear.\nWill it run to some tobacco?\"\n\n\"Thank you so much,\" said Fiona politely. \"And I'm sorry I haven't any\ntobacco with me. But if you could wait a few minutes . . .\"\n\n\"Shiver it, I'm scraping again,\" said the whale. \"No tobacco and very\nfew barnacles in this world. O my grandmother's flukes, I might as\nwell be a bottlenose!\"\n\nOnce more the water boiled, and beneath it the huge black body shot\naway for the open sea.\n\n\"Fiona,\" said the boy, \"do you really think it's cricket?\"\n\n\"What isn't cricket?\" she asked.\n\n\"Fiona,\" he said, \"I've been a brother to you. I have done all the\nthings a brother ought to do. I have taught you to throw like a boy. I\nhave pinched you for new clothes. I have called you names, to make you\ngood-tempered. I have made remarks on your personal appearance, to\nprevent your being vain. I have even fought with you, solely for your\ngood. And this is how you repay me. The other day you pretended to be\ntalking to a shore lark; to-day it was an old whale, who spouted and\nbanged his tail on the rock. If it's a joke, I don't see it. If it's\nnot a joke, do go into a lunatic asylum, and let me find a simpler\njob.\"\n\nFiona tossed up mentally between hitting him and laughing; it came\ndown laughing.\n\n\"Urchin,\" she said, \"it's all right. I don't understand it much better\nthan you do, but it has something to do with this bracelet of mine. I\ncan really understand them and they can understand me. If you doubt my\nword, we will fight a duel with the boat stretchers, and I will bury\nyou in the sand here afterwards.\"\n\n\"Oh, I believe you when you talk like that,\" said the Urchin; \"only\nit's worse than the Latin grammar. _Psittacus loquitur_, \"the parrot\ntalks\"; but this thing seemed to be a whale; it was very like one.\"\n\n\"It was a whale,\" said Fiona. \"He said his great-great-grandmother had\nseen the Spanish captain land his doubloons, and that it was in the\nwest cave on Scargill Island.\"\n\n\"That means the big cave at the end facing the sea,\" said the boy.\n\n\"The cave that no one has ever got to the end of,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"The cave that's haunted,\" said the boy.\n\n\"But of course it's haunted; it's the ghosts of the Spaniards. Silly\nof us not to have guessed.\"\n\nFiona had a hazy recollection of things her father used to say.\n\n\"I expect the haunting is thousands of years older than the\nSpaniards,\" she said. \"Urchin, are you afraid of ghosts?\"\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said the Urchin stoutly. \"They would be splendid to throw\nstones at. It wouldn't hurt them.\"\n\n\"Come on then, let's go,\" said the girl. \"There's lots of daylight.\"\n\n\"None of the people here will go into it, you know,\" said the Urchin.\n\n\"I know,\" said Fiona. \"All the more reason for going on our own. There\nmight really be something there, if no one ever goes to take it away.\"\n\nSo the boat was launched, and the adventure also. Fiona pulled stroke;\nthe Urchin was a clumsy and unpunctual bow, and the girl had to steer\nfrom the stroke oar, which needs more doing than you may think if you\nhaven't tried it. But they made the end of Scargill in time, and then\nFiona took both the oars and coasted, while the Urchin got out a\ncouple of bamboo poles, garnished with white flies, and let the casts\ntrail, occasionally getting one of the beautiful little scarlet lythe,\nthat came at the fly with the spring and dash of a sea trout. For even\nadventurers need supper. And so they came, past many a smaller cave\nmouth in the black side of the island, to the huge bluff that fronts\nthe full Atlantic, and the great west cave.\n\nAtlantic was half asleep to-day, and muttered drowsily to the quiet\nrocks outside. But the great cave was seldom quiet. In the winter,\nwhen Atlantic turned himself restlessly and spoke aloud, the sound of\nhis speaking came back from its depths like the roar of a heavy gun;\nand even in the stillness the lisp of the swell in it echoed as from\nthe roots of the island in a low intermittent boom. Outside, on the\ncalm water, floated the whiskered head of a seal, watching the boat\nwith gentle, fearless eyes,--\"the officer on guard,\" Fiona\nwhispered;--and from the black cliff's face, like a hanging fringe\nover the mouth of the cave, the water splashed down, trickle by\ntrickle, in quick, heavy drops. The children rowed in through the\nlittle shower, and Fiona paddled gently up the cave. Its huge\nlimestone walls stood up stark on either hand, rising into the\ndarkness above, and sinking below into the green water, as far as eye\ncould follow them. Near the water-line grew a little seaweed, and some\nwhite whelks clung; but as they went down the waterway these vanished,\nand gray cliff and green water alike began to turn black. Looking\nback, Fiona could see a bright patch, a patch of sky and\nsky-reflecting sea, framed in the narrow slit of the cave's mouth. The\nwaterway was narrowing now; she shipped her oars and stood up, using\none as a paddle, and instructing the Urchin how to fend off the boat's\nstern with his hands. In front, on a ledge in the cave's roof, it was\njust possible to make out a row of blue dots in the growing darkness;\nas the boat drew nearer, the blue dots fluttered, detached themselves\nfrom the cliff, and a swarm of pigeons came whirring over the boat and\ndown the cave toward the sunlight;--\"Your ghosts, Urchin,\" said the\ngirl. Henceforward the cave was void of life, unless some strange,\neyeless fish lurked in its inky depths. Darker and darker grew the\nwaterway, and the last gleam of light vanished. Fiona was feeling her\nway now, aided by the phosphorescent drip from her oar blade; the\nUrchin, with unusual sense, splashed his hands in the water to\nincrease the pale glow, which just revealed the line of the cliff.\nNeither dare speak now; possibly, had Fiona not had some idea of what\nwas coming, she would have turned. But already there was a faint gleam\nahead, faint as a glow worm, but still a gleam; and as the boat slid\nforward, and the low boom in the depths of the cave grew closer, the\ncave walls very slowly began to grow gray again out of the blackness.\nA few minutes more, and the walls were an outline, and before them, a\nfringe of white on round wet stones, the end of the waterway. And as\nthe boat grounded, Fiona pointed up, and the Urchin, looking, saw a\nlittle round hole; a natural shaft ran down into the cave from the\nsurface of the island, giving light enough for their eyes, now\naccustomed to the darkness, to distinguish outlines.\n\nThey drew their boat up on the stones far enough for the swell not to\ndislodge it; then the same impulse seized them both and they burst out\nlaughing, not aloud, for something in the place made it impossible to\nlaugh or talk aloud, but in a kind of mirthless whisper.\n\n\"We've come without any lights,\" said Fiona in an undertone.\n\n\"We have,\" said the Urchin. \"But probably the stuff is only a few\nyards above high-water mark; they wouldn't go far in.\"\n\n\"They might have,\" said Fiona; \"they'd have had torches or\nsomething.\"\n\n\"Let's go as far as we can, anyway, as we are here,\" said the Urchin.\n\nSo they started scrambling over the stones in the gray half-light.\nPresently there rose before them a great mass of rock and earth, half\nblocking the cave; it looked like some old landslip.\n\n\"It's easy at this end, Fiona,\" said the boy; and up they went, to\nfind that the rock barrier blocked most of what little light remained.\nBeyond was darkness.\n\n\"We must go back and get light,\" said Fiona. \"I can't even see the\nstones below.\" A pause; then, \"Stop swinging your feet, Urchin; I want\nto listen.\"\n\n\"I'm not,\" said the Urchin.\n\nAnother pause, and then the Urchin spoke again, in a kind of stage\nwhisper, \"I'm frightened.\" The words seemed squeezed out of him.\n\n\"We may as well go back, anyhow,\" said Fiona, in a strained voice.\n\"Down you go, Urchin.\"\n\nThe Urchin did go down at a considerable pace, and ran for the boat.\nFiona managed to walk, by repeating to herself all the time under her\nbreath, \"You mustn't run, you mustn't run.\" But once in the boat she\ndid not rebuke the Urchin for standing up and taking the other oar;\nand the pair paddled out, with many bumpings and scrapings, in a more\nspeedy and less scientific manner than that in which they had entered.\n\nOnce out in the sunlight they felt better. They started automatically\nto fish home, and presently were talking again. But neither of them\nreferred to the thing that was uppermost in each mind, though each was\nwondering if the other knew. For as they had sat on the wall of rock,\neach had heard clearly, in the utter darkness of the unvisited cave,\nthe sound of heavy footsteps.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE URCHIN VANISHES\n\n\nTo most people there is some corner of the earth which means more than\nall others; and there are two or three in the world whose holy place\nis the old house on the sea-loch which the Student's humbler neighbors\ncalled the \"big house.\" An old square building of gray stone, that\nmatches the gray sky and the gray sea, it has small claims to beauty;\nit was built in the days of blank windows, and every wind in the\nisland meets and screams round the battered iron balustrade which\nleads up its steps to the door, and strives to tear down the tendrils\nof ivy that cling to the east front. To the south front, lashed by the\nfull Atlantic gales, not even ivy can cling; only a few twisted elders\nand stunted planes grow there, and take the first force of the winter\nwind; but the old lawn to the north bursts in summer into a cloud of\nwhite marguerites, whose ethereal beauty at sunset is like the ghosts\nof the dreams that haunt the place. For to some of us the old house is\nfull of dreams, that cling to the dark passages and the uneven floors,\nand play in and out of the little windows that are still propped open\nwith wood, as they were a hundred years ago; dreams of the bright\nlights and the bright voices that greeted us, coming in out of the\nblinding rain; dreams of the dance and the song, songs of old lost\ncauses from which all bitterness has died away, leaving to-day nothing\nbut beauty behind them; dreams of faded joys and forgotten sorrows, of\nloves that have passed elsewhere and of memories that abide; dreams of\nfaces that are seen no more. Some day it will change ownership; it\nwill be sold to someone from whom understanding of these things has\nbeen withheld, and who will see only the darkness of the old\ncorridors, the shabbiness of the old doorway; and he will build new\ndoors, and porticoes and a wide verandah, and make it fair within and\nwithout, levelling the floors and trimming the lawns; and he will have\ndestroyed the old house and the fragrance of it, and it will never\nreturn. But to-day it still stands as it has stood for many a long\nyear, clothed in the memories that never leave it and rich in all that\nthe past has built into it; and to some who may never dwell there\nagain it is yet ever present as the home of their hearts' desire, a\ntrue house of faery.\n\nThe Student had let the old house to the Urchin's father. He was a\ntall, thin man with a hooked nose, and he knew more about one\nparticular family of Coleoptera than anyone living. He had taken the\nplace, not because he wanted it for its shooting, but because one of\nthe beetles of his family was reputed to be plentiful in the\nneighborhood. He was never there long; he was never anywhere long. For\nthirty years he had pursued his beetles over five continents; his\nmeasurements of their wing cases alone filled nine enormous MS.\nvolumes. His great work on the variation of the length of the wing\ncase in beetles kept in captivity had become a classic. Scientific men\nhad nothing but praise for the book; several even read it. The\nmajority believed that he had re-founded Neo-Mendelism past any\noverthrowing; a small but persistent minority argued that, on the\ncontrary, he had utterly overthrown the Neo-Mendelians. All, however,\nagreed that the book was epoch-making, even though they differed\nutterly as to the sort of epoch which it made. The author himself was\na shy and modest person, who never lost his temper except when people\nsent him unpaid parcels from Timbuctoo or Khamchatka containing\nbeetles of other families in which he took no interest. On the rare\noccasions when he could be induced to go into society, kind-hearted\nhostesses, who saw no reason why one crawling thing should not do as\nwell as another had been known to try to please him by starting a\nconversation about ladybirds or earwigs; and it was said to be worth\nforegoing one's cigar to hear him explain, with a chuckle, that though\nearwigs or ladybirds were no doubt meritorious creatures in their\nseveral spheres, and possibly legitimate objects of study to others,\nthey were not his subject; his subject was a particular family of\nColeoptera. He and the Student had become great friends, and when he\nwas in the island he would often drop in to see the Student's bookroom\nafter dinner and there the two would sit, one on either side of the\nfire, each smoking at a tremendous pace and talking hard on his own\nsubject. Neither ever expected an answer from the other; neither ever\ngot one. But they had silently established an unwritten law that when\none had talked for three minutes by the clock on the mantelpiece he\nwas to stop and let the other have a turn; and when at last they said\ngood night, each felt that they had both had a thoroughly enjoyable\nevening. And so they had.\n\nUnlike to unlike. The Urchin's father had married the daughter of a\nstockbroker, who, on her death, had left him two legacies; one was the\nUrchin, and the other was an occasional visitation from her brother\nJeconiah. Mr. Jeconiah P. Johnson, the well-known promoter of\ncompanies, was a short, stout man with a red face and a shifty blue\neye, always immaculately dressed in broadcloth with a huge expanse of\nwhite waistcoat, over which sprawled his double watch chain and his\ntriple chin. There were possibly some good points even about Jeconiah,\nif anything so rotund could be said to have points; but there were\ncertainly not many. He was supposed by some to possess what is called\n\"a high standard of business morality\"; it would be truer to say that\nhis code was prehistoric. He had so far kept himself right with the\nlaw, because he had mastered the sordid maxim which proclaims that\nhonesty is the best policy; no other reason was likely to occur to\nhim. With some effort he had succeeded in formulating a rule of\nconduct of which he was rather proud: Do good to yourself and your\nfriends and evil to those who stand in your way. If anyone had told\nhim that the philosophy of ethics took its rise, some twenty-two\ncenturies ago, in a reaction against a similar rule, he would have\nremarked jocosely that he never studied back numbers. Of anything more\nexalted than \"policy,\" anything not to be reckoned in terms of L.s.d.,\nhe was as ignorant as a hippopotamus.\n\nHe was never very fond of his right hand's knowing what his left hand\ndid; for while the right hand promoted companies, the left hand, by\nmeans of a manager and a registered alias, carried on a very useful\nlittle money-lender's business. He was never averse to putting the\nscrew on, if there was anything to be got by it; and sometimes he got\nrather funny things. Recently he had had a broken debtor on his hands,\nand had taken what he could get; among other things, an old bureau\nfull of papers. Jeconiah, being a methodical soul, had turned a clerk\non to sort the papers; and the clerk had presently brought him the\nlong lost map of the Scargill cave, and a sheet of paper containing\nsomebody's rough explanation of what it was supposed to be. Jeconiah,\nwho had heard the story, scented possibilities, and, it being a slack\ntime in the City, promptly invited himself to his brother-in-law's\nhouse to recover from an attack of influenza. That is how Jeconiah\ncomes into this story. It could not be helped, for he had the map. The\nfinner had said he was too fat to count; but that is where the finner\nwas wrong.\n\nJeconiah forthwith gave his mind, such as it was, to the subject of\ncaves. Diffidence was not his failing, and he cross-examined every\nperson he could find, concealing, of course, his real object. He\ncollected a splendid amount of rubbish; but he was acute enough where\nhis pocket was concerned, and out of the rubbish he presently dragged\nforth the fact of the haunted cave which no one would enter. Whereon\nJeconiah went over to Scargill to fish, and had a look at the lie of\nthe island; settled with himself that it seemed a good enough place\nfor a wreck, and told the keeper to row him into the west cave. But\nthe keeper, who had no particular liking for Jeconiah, refused\npoint-blank, and told him he would not find a man in the island who\nwould do it; and Jeconiah, who had suddenly lost interest in the\nfishing, went home in a bad temper. This happened the day after the\ntwo children were in the cave; and the day after that the Urchin's\nfather received an excited cablegram from Brazil on the subject of his\nbeloved beetles. He rushed down at once to see the Student.\n\n\"I am going to Brazil, I don't know for how long,\" he said. \"And my\nboy can't go back to school for a month or more, as they have scarlet\nfever in the village there. And I don't like to leave him with the\nhousekeeper, and I start in two hours. Will you take him?\"\n\n\"Delighted,\" said the Student. \"Fiona will look after him.\"\n\nSo the Urchin came, and with him came to Fiona a sense of\nresponsibility for him. She couldn't help it.\n\nBut Jeconiah showed no intention of moving. On the contrary, the\nafter-effects of influenza were still troubling him sorely, it seemed.\nAt last the Urchin's father had to tell him to stay a week or two\nlonger, if he wanted to; the servants would be there anyhow. And\nJeconiah thanked him and settled down to stay, as he had meant to do\nall along. But as soon as his brother-in-law was gone he took the car\nand went off for the day. The chauffeur said that he went to a lot of\nplaces and talked to a lot of people; and a couple of days later two\nstrange men in a boat entered the bay and proceeded to camp out on a\npart of the shore which was not the Student's property. Jeconiah had,\nin fact, hired the boat, and found a couple of ne'er-do-wells from the\nmainland who knew nothing of him and were ready to row him anywhere in\npursuit of his business, which was understood to be photographing wild\nbirds for an illustrated paper.\n\nJeconiah had, however, made one great mistake. He was aware that you\nmust not neglect little things, and he had neglected quite a big\nlittle thing--the Urchin. He had never spoken to him about caves, or\ntaken the least notice of the boy's movements. And the Urchin on his\nside had been hard at work. He had confessed to Fiona on the subject\nof the footsteps, and she to him; and they had agreed, under the broad\nhealthy light of day, that probably they had been mistaken and afraid\nof the dark, and that with lanterns it would be all right. They\nagreed, however, that it was necessary to have a really good light,\nand the difficulty was to find one. It was the Urchin who came forward\nas the saviour of society by proposing to win over Jones, the\nchauffeur, and get the loan of one of the big acetylene head-lamps\nfrom the car. Jones, a newcomer, had not yet heard about the cave,\nand, being English, he had not yet found his feet among his fellows\nand was glad of any sort of diversion. The Urchin wound up a\ntriumphant half hour of diplomacy by making Jones promise to lend him\none of the headlights and show him how to work it. Then the Urchin\nfell, as many greater men have fallen; he was lifted up with pride,\nand told Jones that Fiona and he were going treasure-hunting. Jones\ngrinned; but that evening he talked; and in due course Jeconiah heard.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFiona was digging in her garden, or rather in the Urchin's, for she\nhad assigned him one bit of it, which she had to cultivate for him;\notherwise it would have run waste, for all the work the Urchin put\ninto it. Her garden was one corner of the old walled garden of the\nStudent's house, which was not very well kept now. Once it had been\ngay with flowers and rich with fruit; but now few flowers grew there\nsave such as could look after themselves, and the fruit had come down\nto two gnarled old apple trees, in which Fiona had made her earliest\nexperiments in climbing. Most of the ground, so far as it was in use,\nwas now given over to cabbages and potatoes; but in June the borders\nwere sweet with double white narcissus, and now in September there was\na revel of unpruned roses, their blooms growing smaller year by year,\nand a mass of the dark-red blossoms of the little west coast fuchsia,\nwhich knows how to live through the winter. One deserted corner was\ngay with Turk's turban, which still had strength to push up through\nthe ever-thickening tangle of weeds; and groups of winter crocus were\ncoming up in the borders, and among them a few Shirley poppies which\nFiona had sown herself. Fiona had had thoughts of taking the garden in\nhand, but the space enclosed by the old walls was far too large for\nher to manage unaided; and as there was no money to pay a proper\ngardener, she had had to content herself with clearing one corner.\nHere she had achieved a riot of color. She had made a little rockery\nof oak-leaf and beech ferns brought down from the hill, sentinelled by\ntall pink foxgloves; the worn-out plum trees against the wall behind\nwere threaded and festooned with thick trailers of yellow and scarlet\nnasturtium; and in front of the rockery, her especial pride, was a\ngreat bed of velvet pansies, rich with every hue of the rainbow. They\nwere flanked by simple annuals, filmy pink poppies, orange escholtzias\nand sweet-scented mignonette; and in a bed by themselves were the gold\nand crimson snapdragons which the Urchin had begged for her from the\ngardener at the big house.\n\nShe must needs dig up a centipede, one of the small yellow ones. They\nwere her special dislike. The centipede did not like being dug up\neither, and writhed himself into seven different sets of tangles at\nonce, as is the way of the smaller centipedes.\n\n\"You horrid little yellow beast,\" she said, forgetting that he could\nunderstand, and made a dab at him with her spade, which, to her\nrelief, missed him. She felt she had done her duty by hitting at him,\nbut did not hide from herself that she had really missed him on\npurpose.\n\n\"Little's all right,\" said the centipede, \"and yellow's all right; and\nthough I'm not really a beast, we will let it go at that. But I'm not\na bit horrid.\"\n\n\"But I don't like you,\" said Fiona, \"and you wriggle so.\"\n\n\"In the circles in which I move,\" said the centipede, \"my wriggling is\nmuch admired. And the mere fact that you do not like me--which, I may\nremind you, is only a subjective impression and has neither objective\nvalidity nor permanent value--does not entitle you to call me names.\nYou ought to have learnt better, with that bangle of yours. For all\nyou know, I may be a model of the more unselfish virtues.\"\n\n\"But you eat the roots of my flowers,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"That is the first I have heard of it,\" said the centipede. \"But one\nlives and learns. It need not be the same one, though, who does both.\nSo in the present case I propose that I should live and you should\nlearn.\"\n\n\"I wasn't going to kill you really,\" said Fiona.\n\nThe centipede bowed.\n\n\"A little courtesy does oil the creaking machinery of life, doesn't\nit?\" he said. \"Please lift me up, for I have something to tell you,\nand your head is so far away. Shouting at you hurts my throat.\"\n\nFiona stooped down and took up the little yellow creature in her hand.\n\n\"Congratulations,\" said the centipede. \"We _are_ getting on. You\nwanted badly to shudder, and you didn't. We shall make something of\nyou yet. My old friend the bookworm--who lives in your father's\nlibrary, by the way--has recently supplied me with a new quotation\nfrom the great poet Virgil, who had once, you may remember, quite a\nreputation as a magician. It was to the effect that if you couldn't\nget what you wanted by beginning at the top, you should start again at\nthe bottom. I am the bottom. I am not the _very_ bottom, but I am near\nenough to it for your purpose. Now you see what you have gained by\nnot killing me.\"\n\n\"I don't see anything yet, I'm afraid,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"One must have patience with weaker vessels,\" said the centipede. \"So\nI will explain. My friend the bookworm, who supplies me with my\nquotations, has a cousin of the same profession in the library at the\nbig house. It was through him that I got the story I am going to tell\nyou about the fat man.\"\n\n\"Mr. Johnson!\" exclaimed Fiona. \"He has nothing to do with me.\" She\ndisliked Jeconiah heartily, so far as she had given any thought to\nhim.\n\n\"Oh, yes, he has,\" said the centipede. \"This is where I come in. My\nbookworm's cousin, who is a great linguist and understands English\nperfectly, was at work in the library the other evening, and the fat\nman was having his coffee there. After coffee he lit a cigar and began\nto walk up and down, and presently he started talking to himself out\nloud, as my informant says he often does when he is excited. And by\npiecing his talk together, my informant made out that he had the map\nof the Scargill cave, which one of your ancestors once gambled away,\nand that somehow or other he had found out that the cave of the map\n_was_ the Scargill cave, and that he was only waiting for a smooth day\nto go and locate the treasure.\"\n\n\"Well?\" said Fiona.\n\n\"Oh, come now,\" said the centipede, \"it's no use pretending. We all\nknow that you are treasure-hunting--remember we can all understand\neverything _you_ say, whether we are linguists or not--and my advice\nto you is, to be quick about it, before the fat man can get his oar\nin.\"\n\n\"Thank you so much,\" said Fiona. \"And I am so sorry I began by being\nrude. Tell me, why have you told me all this when I began by being\nrude?\"\n\n\"Because I am a model of the more unselfish virtues, of course,\" said\nthe centipede with a suppressed chuckle. \"As a fact, I had an\nearth-phone from headquarters. But we are all backing you, you know.\nAnd now will you put me down, please; the upper air is chilly.\"\n\nHe wriggled into a crack in the ground, and was gone.\n\nThat evening Fiona and the Urchin made their final preparations, in\ncase the morrow should fall calm. That evening also Jeconiah heard\nthat he had rivals in the field. His language, as he walked up and\ndown the library, would have been very bad for the bookworm's morals\nhad that intelligent insect been able to understand it all; but the\nbookworm's English, though good, was literary, and much of the modern\nidiom employed by Jeconiah slid off its back. Jeconiah's plan had been\nto make sure that the gold was there, and then charter a launch from\nGlasgow and take it straight to railway-head; he saw now that he could\nnot afford the time, and that unless he could deal with the children\nin some way he might have to take the gold off in his boat, which\nwould entail some risk, as well as cost him a heavy sum to buy his two\nboatmen. Also he made up his mind that he must go the next morning,\nwhatever the weather, if it were possible to launch the boat; he knew\nthat the children, with their little skiff, could only go to sea on\ncalm days.\n\nUnfortunately for Jeconiah, the night fell calm, and though he rose\nearly, he had no notion of starting without a good breakfast. By the\ntime his boat was launched and he himself aboard, he had the pleasure\nof seeing through his glasses the children's boat off the east or\nnearer end of Scargill. The wealth of adjectives which he employed in\nthe circumstances filled his two loafers with awe and admiration.\n\nFiona, having the Urchin securely under her roof, had breakfasted\nbefore dawn, and as soon as it was light enough the children launched\ntheir little boat. The Urchin had the precious headlight, ready\ncharged, tied up in an old sack which would also serve to bring away\nthe plunder; and round his waist he had twisted a length of cast-off\nrope. Its use was not apparent, but he thought it looked\nbusiness-like. They saw that Jeconiah's boat was still drawn up\nashore, and in good heart they started on their long pull. They had\nreached the island before Jeconiah had his boat out; having no\nglasses, they could not see if it was being launched or not. But off\nthe eastern end of the island, which is low and grassy, they had a\nfright, for an empty boat was drawn ashore there. However, when they\nrowed close in to look at it, Fiona recognized it.\n\n\"It's Angus MacEachan's boat,\" she said. \"He has come to see after the\nsheep he has on the island. There he is, I can see him; he has got a\nsheep that has hurt its foot.\" And indeed they could see Angus tending\na sick sheep.\n\n\"Fiona,\" said the boy, \"we are too silly for anything. Of course the\nfootsteps we heard in the cave were Angus's. There is another way in\nsomewhere, and he would be looking for a sheep.\"\n\nFiona said nothing. As they neared the cave, the problem of the\nfootsteps kept intruding itself more and more vividly upon her; but\nthe Urchin was happy in his theory, and she did not think it necessary\nto remind him that the footsteps could not possibly have been those of\nAngus, who walked with a limp. She began to feel a vague sense of\ndisquiet, which she tried in vain to put aside.\n\nThey entered the cave, and the Urchin, with much pride, lit his great\nlamp. The powerful burner threw a wonderful circle of light on to\nblack water and black walls, making them glow and sparkle with a soft\nradiance till they looked like the very gateway of fairyland. Outside\nthe circle everything became black as pitch. They paddled quietly up\nthe bright waterway, and grounded on the stones at the end. The Urchin\nwas hot after his long row, and helping to draw the boat up on the\nstones did not make him any cooler; he took off his jacket and pitched\nit on to a thwart.\n\n\"Yes, it is hot, and stuffy,\" said Fiona. She recollected some story\nshe had read about a coal mine, and sniffed. \"I hope there is no gas\nhere,\" she said.\n\nThe Urchin grinned.\n\n\"Oh, you girls!\" he said. \"Who ever heard of gas in a sea cave. What\nyou are smelling is the lamp.\"\n\nFiona took the lamp up.\n\n\"I'm going to take charge of this myself,\" she said. \"You can carry\nthe treasure.\"\n\nThe Urchin picked up the sack and threw it over his shoulder.\n\n\"Go ahead, lady with the lamp,\" he said, and grinned again. He felt\nvery adventurous. He would rather have liked to be photographed.\n\nWith considerable caution, necessitated by the heavy lamp, they\nclimbed the rock barrier and descended into the darkness of the inner\ncave. The walking was better here; the rounded slippery boulders had\ngiven place to a floor of pebbles and sand. Quite a short way from the\nbarrier the wall of the cave curved away in a semicircle on the\nright, its smooth surface forming a kind of small recess. Fiona swept\nthe recess with her lamp, and on the sandy floor something gleamed\nback; the Urchin pounced on it and picked it up. It was a gold coin,\nnot the least like any which the children had ever seen. It was, in\nfact, a doubloon.\n\n\"This must be one of them,\" said the boy exultantly as he pocketed it;\n\"one that got dropped. Come on, it can't be much farther.\"\n\nBut Fiona held the lamp steady and stared at the sand.\n\n\"Look at the marks on the sand,\" she said. \"They are like the marks of\nheavy boxes. The treasure has been here, Urchin, and it's not here\nnow. Someone has been here and taken it, and dropped one piece.\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" said the Urchin. \"We shall find them a bit farther\non.\"\n\nSo they went on, but not very far. For the light of the lamp suddenly\nfell on a rock wall before them, the end of the cave. And it had\nended, not as the other caves do, by the roof growing lower and lower\ntill it meets the floor; it had ended in this huge chamber of high\nrocky walls.\n\n\"So this is the cave that no one has ever reached the end of,\" said\nFiona. \"Why, it goes no distance at all.\"\n\nThey retraced their steps to the recess, and then back to the end\nagain, looking on this side and on that for openings, but it seemed\nquite clear that there were none.\n\n\"The boxes must have been carried off by sea,\" said Fiona.\n\nBut the Urchin had an idea.\n\n\"No one would try to carry great heavy boxes over the rock barrier,\"\nhe said. \"They'd just take the gold out in sacks.\"\n\n\"The barrier may be a rock-fall,\" said Fiona. \"The treasure may all\nhave been cleared out long ago.\"\n\nAnd then there came to the Urchin the realization of the fact that he\nhad lost his gun. He turned very red.\n\n\"It's a shame,\" he said angrily, \"an awful shame. It was given to me,\nand someone has taken it. Can't you think where it could be, Fiona?\nI'd go _anywhere_ to find it.\"\n\nWhatever Fiona may have been going to say, her words tailed off into\nsudden silence. For from beyond the cave wall, as it seemed, sounded\nagain the footsteps which they had heard before; and this time they\nknew that there was no cave there, and that It was walking through\nsolid rock as if along a road. There was no question this time of any\nconcealment or pretence; both frankly turned tail and made for the\nrock barrier. Halfway there the Urchin tripped and fell heavily on his\nhead. Fiona put the lamp down and helped him up, dizzy and shaking.\n\n\"Can you go on, Urchin?\" she said. \"If not, I'll try and carry you.\"\n\nThe Urchin looked back into the blackness, unrelieved by any ray of\nthe lamp, which faced the other way. The footsteps were steadily\ndrawing nearer, neither hasting nor staying. What the Urchin may have\nthought he saw Fiona could not guess; he gave one shriek, slid out of\nher grasp, and bolted for the rock barrier as fast as his trembling\nfeet would carry him.\n\nFor one moment Fiona all but followed him. Then it suddenly came to\nher that she was responsible for the boy's safety. She never knew\nafterwards how she managed to do what she did; but she turned, and\nwith the courage of utter desperation--the courage which enables the\nhen partridge to face the sparrow hawk--stood at bay, swinging up the\nheavy lamp to see and face whatever should come.\n\nAnd into the circle of lamplight quietly walked the figure of the old\nhawker.\n\nThe revulsion of feeling was too much for Fiona. She sprang forward\nand caught the old man's hand and clung to it.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, \"I'm so glad it's you. We heard the footsteps and we\nwere so frightened.\" The relief of it all was overwhelming; she was\nalmost crying, and went on saying anything, hardly knowing what she\nsaid, just for the mere human companionableness of it. \"How did you\ncome here? I suppose you came over with Angus in his boat. Of course\nyou would. Then there must be another way into the cave after all, and\nwe couldn't find it.\"\n\n\"And so I frightened you?\" said the old man gently, making no effort\nto withdraw his hand. \"Yes, there is another way in.\" He made no\nattempt to answer all her questions.\n\n\"Urchin,\" called Fiona, raising her voice. \"Urchin, come back; it's\nall right.\"\n\nBut there was no answer.\n\n\"Urchin,\" she shouted; \"Urchin.\"\n\nBut there was no answer save the echoing of the empty cave.\n\n\"He was going down to the boat,\" she said, loyally repressing the fact\nthat the Urchin had bolted. \"We must go after him, for he had hurt his\nhead, and I am afraid of his falling again.\"\n\nThey climbed the rock barrier, and made their way to the boat. The\nboat lay there as it had been left, half ashore, with the swell\nrippling against the stern, and over one thwart the Urchin's jacket,\njust as he had thrown it down. And the boat was as empty as the cave.\n\nInto Fiona's eyes came a sudden fear.\n\n\"He must have fallen again, and be lying somewhere,\" she said.\n\nThey went back, searching every nook and corner of the cave, turning\nthe light into every crevice, under every rock, making a minute\nexamination of the rock barrier; and there was no sign.\n\nAnd then Fiona broke down.\n\n\"He is drowned,\" she said, and just sat and sobbed.\n\nAfter a few moments the old man came and sat down beside her. In his\ngentle voice he said that the Urchin could not possibly be drowned.\nThe water was quite shallow at the edge, and he was a good swimmer,\nwas he not? And even if he had not been, the swell would have rolled\nhim ashore. He himself had no doubt that all would come right.\n\nFiona ceased sobbing and turned on him.\n\n\"Do you know where he is?\" she demanded bluntly.\n\n\"How would I know when you do not know?\" said the old man. \"Could I\nsee what you could not see?\" And then \"Listen.\"\n\nDown the waterway came voices, and the sound of oars. It was in fact\nJeconiah's boat entering the cave.\n\nFiona caught at the straw.\n\n\"He may have swum out to the other boat,\" she said.\n\nBut there was no one in the other boat but Jeconiah and his two men.\nThey had powerful lanterns, and the boat was full of sacks. Jeconiah\nhimself was purple with suppressed rage and impatience. The moment he\ncould get ashore, he waddled up to Fiona and shook the map of the cave\nin her face, exclaiming, \"Remember, if you have found anything it\nbelongs to me and I claim it.\"\n\nFiona had only one thought in her mind at the moment, and the foolish\nimpertinence of the little fat man was to her merely so much\nunnecessary sound. Her answer was \"Have you seen the Urchin? We have\nlost him. Did he not swim out to your boat?\" She was almost sobbing\nagain.\n\n\"Confound the brat!\" said Jeconiah roughly. \"I've not come here to\nplay hide-and-seek with a parcel of children. Tell me at once what\nyou've found.\"\n\nFiona straightened herself, and looked at Jeconiah as though he were\nsome noxious reptile.\n\n\"There was nothing here to find,\" she said. \"And this cave belongs to\nmy father. And anything in it he gave to the Urchin.\"\n\n\"Well, he's not here,\" said Jeconiah brutally, \"and I am. Who finds,\nkeeps.\"\n\nAnd calling to his men to bring the lights, he set off, between\nstumbling and crawling, for the rock barrier. One of the men had the\ndecency to stop a moment and tell Fiona that they had seen nothing of\nany boy; Jeconiah turned and abused him for a laggard.\n\nWith a good deal of difficulty the two men hoisted and shoved Jeconiah\nover the rock barrier. Once over, he took a light himself, told the\nmen to wait where they were, and after a good look at the map set out\nfor the recess where the Urchin had found the doubloon. Fiona followed\nhim; there was some vague idea in her mind of protecting the Urchin's\nproperty; behind that there was still a faint subconscious hope that\nin some way or other the Urchin would suddenly reappear, and laugh at\nher terrors.\n\nJeconiah reached the recess. He saw and understood the marks of the\nboxes on the sand. He swung round on Fiona with a snarl like that of a\nhungry wolf.\n\n\"You think you're clever, don't you, you and your father,\" he said. \"I\nsuppose you've had the stuff moved. But I'll have it if I go to the\nmiddle of the earth for it.\"\n\nIt was the old hawker who shouted. He had stood apart, a silent\nspectator of the scene. And at this moment he called out, in a voice\nof surprising power for so frail a body:\n\n\"Look out above you. Jump.\"\n\nFiona, who had learned to obey, jumped back just in time. But Jeconiah\nhad never learnt to obey any orders but his own. He stood, stupidly\nstaring, as a bit of the roof of the cave bowed downward, gave way,\nand came cascading about him in a shower of earth and big stones, that\nfilled the air with thick dust. When the dust cleared again, they saw\nJeconiah lying on his back in the middle of the cliff fall,\nmotionless, and to all appearance dead.\n\nBut Fiona was not looking at Jeconiah. She was looking at the place\nwhere the roof of the cave had bowed itself before falling; and into\nher mind came crowding dim forgotten legends, legends of fear and\nhope. And she was saying over and over again to herself, as though she\nmight miss its purport, that behind the cliff fall, as if impelling\nand directing it, she had seen a small brown elfin hand.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was the old hawker who took charge of the situation. The two men,\nwho at first had looked as if they would run, became amenable when he\nspoke to them. They carried Jeconiah's body to his boat, and laid it\nin the stern-sheets. One of the men pointed out that there was no mark\nat all on his face or head, and that he did not believe he had been\nstruck.\n\n\"Died of fright, I expect,\" he said curtly.\n\n\"Lucky we stood out for wages in advance,\" said his companion. It\nlooked as if this might be Jeconiah's fitting epitaph.\n\nThe old man himself went with Fiona in her boat. But he was too feeble\nto row far, so he landed on the island and went in search of Angus. In\ndue course Angus came down and rowed Fiona home, saying that the old\nman was going to look after his sheep for him till he returned. It did\nnot occur to Fiona, until they had gone too far to turn back, that it\nlooked as though the old man wished to avoid questions. Her mind was\nin a helpless whirl in which everything seemed unreal, except the\nUrchin and that small brown hand. She could not give her father any\nvery coherent account of what had happened; but he went out at once to\nfind a boat and men to search the cave.\n\nJeconiah was laid on his bed in the big house, and there was much\ncommotion there; this one must go for the doctor and that one for the\nStudent; scared maids stood and whispered in the corridors; the two\nloafers, heroes of the hour, feasted happily in the kitchen. Then the\ndoctor came, and went upstairs with a grave face, as befitted the\noccasion; but he did not come down again, and surmise grew. Half an\nhour passed before the door opened, and the doctor, smiling and\nrubbing his hands together, came into the library, where the Student\nhad just entered and was talking to the housekeeper.\n\n\"He's not dead at all,\" said the doctor. \"It's catalepsy--suspended\nanimation, you know. Like the frog in the marble. Had a shock, you\ntell me? Just so, just so. How long? Oh, he may be an hour, and he\nmay be a month; no one can ever say. Never had the good luck to see a\ncase before. Not _very_ uncommon, no. Mustn't try to rouse him, you\nknow; might be dangerous. Just wait. Send for me at once if he comes\nto. Can get two nurses to watch him, if you like; just as well\nperhaps. Sometimes they are odd when they wake; think they are someone\nelse for a bit, you know, change their habits, and so on. Dual\npersonality? Oh, yes, several well-attested cases; but I don't mean as\nmuch as that. Might arise this way, of course; but what I mean is more\njust queer. But of course he need not be; might wake up as if he'd\nbeen asleep. If it lasts long, take away all the almanacs and things,\nin case he gets a shock. Well, good day, good day.\"\n\nAnd the doctor went; and Jeconiah's body lay still on the bed, waiting\ntill his soul, if he had one, should return to it.\n\nSo the Student went home again; and on his way he met the old hawker,\nwho stopped and spoke to him; and for a few moments the two walked\ntogether, the old man talking rather quickly. Fiona, watching from the\nwindow of the bookroom, could see that her father first looked puzzled\nand then grave and then considerably relieved; in a dim kind of way\nshe found herself thinking that Angus must have rowed back very fast\nto Scargill, if the old hawker were already landed. She was wondering\nwho he really was and why her father talked to him.\n\n\"Tell Anne to get us something to eat--anything,\" said the Student.\n\"The boat will be here directly.\"\n\nThe Student, by straining what remained of old loyalty as far as he\ndared, had found half a dozen volunteers, good men, to face the\nhaunted cave, provided he went himself.\n\n\"Do you want to come, Fiona?\" he said. Of course Fiona meant to come.\n\nAnd while they waited, the Student questioned Fiona, and had the whole\nstory coherently, except the hand. That part Fiona felt she could not\ntell; there, in the cheerful bookroom, it seemed so impossible. Once\nor twice he nodded, and said, \"That would be so\"; and at the end he\npointed out that whatever had happened had happened when her back was\nturned, as she faced the coming footsteps. She had not thought of\nthat. What puzzled her, and hurt her a little, was that, though her\nfather seemed to feel for _her_, he did not appear to be particularly\nconcerned about the Urchin. \"I believe it will come right,\" was all he\nsaid.\n\nThe boat arrived, rowed by strong hands; the men worked with a will,\nand the distance to the cave seemed short. They had brought good\nlights, and the Student had a powerful electric torch. High and low\nthey searched the cave, and found nothing. One man, who was a good\nswimmer, dived several times and found nothing there either. Tracking\nfootsteps was impossible; the sand, where there was any, had been\nhopelessly trampled.\n\nWhen nothing more could be done, the Student said that he wanted to\nlook for a thing himself which he had an idea of. He went down to the\nend of the cave with his torch and tapped the wall with a geological\nhammer. Fiona sat on the rock barrier and watched him; what he was\nseeking she had no idea. He came slowly back down the cave, tapping\nthe wall, till he reached the recess where the Urchin had picked up\nthe doubloon. He went straight to the back of the recess and tapped\nthe wall there; and even as he did so a large piece of stone fell from\nabove, and smashed the electric torch in his hand. He came back to the\nrock barrier quite unperturbed, looking as if he had found what he\nsought.\n\n\"Not very safe, this cave,\" he said calmly; and told the men to push\noff the boat. \"There is nothing more we can do,\" he said; \"the boy is\ncertainly not here.\"\n\nThe men's courage was fast ebbing away; they were glad to get out of\nthe haunted place.\n\nFiona sat in silence all the way home. It was dark before they\nreached the house. She waited while Anne bustled over supper; she\nthought she would never see her father alone. At last supper was over,\nand he went into the bookroom and began to light his pipe; she\nfollowed him. Her words came out in a torrent.\n\n\"Daddy,\" she said, \"what does it all mean? and why are you so strange\nand unconcerned? What did that old man tell you? If I couldn't see,\n_he_ must have seen, for he was facing. What is it you know? And why\nhave you told me nothing?\"\n\n\"Sit down, little daughter,\" said the Student. He drew her beside his\nknee, with her head on his arm. \"I will tell you now what I can. The\nold man gave me a sort of hint. He did not really see, for the lamp\nwas the other way; I fancy he guessed. I wanted to test what he said\nto me. I have tested it now with my hammer; it all agrees. I am\nabsolutely certain that no harm has come to the Urchin. But I can do\nnothing for him myself. And I must not even tell you what I think;\nfor if I do it ruins everything. All I may tell you is this, that you\nare the only person who can do anything. You will have to do it all\nyourself and by yourself, little daughter. I believe you have ways and\nmeans of your own of finding out. Are you going through with it,\nFiona?\"\n\n\"Of course I am, daddy,\" she said. \"How can I do anything else? If\nonly I knew what it is I have to do to find him--how to begin even.\"\n\n\"I cannot even tell you that,\" said the Student. But his fingers\nplayed with the copper bangle on her wrist. And out of some dim corner\nof subconsciousness she seemed to hear a small voice which said \"If\nyou can't get what you want by beginning at the top you must start\nagain at the bottom.\" Her father, with his learning, was the top; the\nbottom . . . ?\n\nFiona went to bed less miserable than she had expected.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE OREAD\n\n\nFiona was out long before breakfast next morning, digging furiously in\nher garden. Not many minutes passed before she was rewarded by a glint\nof something yellow in a shovelful of earth, and there was the\ncentipede.\n\n\"You dear creature,\" she said, and caught it up quickly before it\ncould wriggle away.\n\n\"How polite we are this morning,\" said the centipede, swelling with\nconscious pride. \"I suppose we want something.\"\n\nFiona's mind was far too completely taken up with her one object to\nnotice or resent any insinuations.\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" she said. \"You told me that if I could not get what I\nwanted by beginning at the top I must start again at the bottom. I\ncan do nothing from the top this time, so I've come to you.\"\n\n\"Flattered, to be sure,\" said the centipede. \"How frank we are.\"\n\n\"Please don't be cross,\" said Fiona, humbly. \"I am only doing what you\ntold me to do.\"\n\n\"Bless you, child, I'm not cross,\" said the centipede. \"I'm a\nphilosopher.\"\n\n\"Don't philosophers get cross?\" asked the girl.\n\n\"Never,\" said the centipede. \"And when they do they call it something\nelse. What's the matter with me is, that I've sprained my seventh\nankle on bow side, counting from the tail. Don't say you're sorry, for\nyou're not. Anyone can see you're not.\"\n\n\"You are horrid to-day,\" said Fiona. \"And the other day you were so\nnice.\"\n\n\"That's what makes me such a charming companion,\" said the centipede.\n\"You never know what to expect. So I never pall.\"\n\n\"I want to know where the Urchin is, and how I am to find him,\" said\nFiona.\n\n\"Is that all?\" said the centipede. \"Fancy interrupting my breakfast on\naccount of that boy. Well, one question at a time. We'll have the last\none first; I'm in that sort of mood to-day.\"\n\n\"How can I find the Urchin, then, please?\" asked Fiona.\n\n\"Well, you've been told _that_ already,\" said the centipede. \"Haven't\nyou a memory?\"\n\nFiona thought and thought, but could make nothing of it.\n\n\"My friend the bookworm was there at the time,\" said the centipede,\n\"and heard the shore lark tell you that the last man went up a hill.\nVery well. Go up a hill.\"\n\n\"But that was for something quite different,\" said Fiona. \"That was\nfor my treasure. I am not thinking of any treasure now.\"\n\n\"Silly of you, then,\" said the centipede. \"I would be. Ever studied\nphilosophy?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"That's a pity,\" said the centipede. \"Then you've never heard of Hegel\nand the unity of opposites? Black and white are only different\naspects of the same thing, you know. And as soon as you begin to think\nabout it, you see at once how sensible it is. Well, a treasure-hunt\nand a boy-hunt are only different aspects of a hunt, aren't they?\nTherefore they are the same thing. Therefore what does for one does\nfor the other. Therefore you go up a hill. There's logic for you,\" and\nonce more he swelled proudly.\n\n\"Thank you very much,\" said Fiona. \"And now will you please tell me\nwhere the Urchin is?\"\n\n\"Tell you!\" exclaimed the centipede. \"Why, it was you told me. You\nprophesied the whole thing.\"\n\n\"I'm sure I don't remember it, then,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"What's the matter with _you_,\" said the centipede, \"is that you\nrefuse to exert your intelligence, such as it is. You should take a\nlesson by me. You humans are all forgetting nowadays that the spoken\nword is an instrument of great power, and that once it is launched it\ngoes on and on, and can work magic on its own account, quite\nindependently of you. If you say a thing will happen, it frequently\ndoes happen.\"\n\n\"But what did I say?\" asked Fiona.\n\n\"You told the Urchin that if he hurt the shore lark the Little People\nwould take him. Well, they've taken him. That's all.\"\n\nAnd the centipede slid down on to the ground, and with something like\na chuckle vanished. He had evidently learned from his philosophy to\nbear with resignation the misfortunes of others.\n\nBut Fiona did not set off up a hill at once. After breakfast she went\nto the bookroom and spoke to her father.\n\n\"I have found out where the Urchin is, daddy,\" she said. \"He was\ncarried off by the fairies.\"\n\nThe Student showed no surprise.\n\n\"You have not been long finding out, Fiona,\" he said. \"I thought you\nhad ways and means of your own.\"\n\n\"But, daddy,\" she said, \"I don't _really_ believe it, you know. It\nsounds so absurd nowadays. Do you believe it?\"\n\n\"I believe it, yes,\" said the Student. \"I knew yesterday. Now that you\nknow, I may talk to you about it, so far.\"\n\n\"I don't know that I do really know,\" she said. \"Things like that\ndon't _really_ happen, do they? Whoever heard of it?\"\n\n\"You and I have heard of it,\" he answered. \"And that is enough. The\nproposition that people are not carried off by fairies is a mere\nworking hypothesis, liable to be overthrown by any one case to the\ncontrary. Well, we've got a case to the contrary, and that's the end\nof the hypothesis.\"\n\n\"I'm arguing against myself, daddy, you know,\" she said. \"I want to\nbelieve that we do know where he is.\"\n\n\"No difficulty at all,\" said the Student, \"to anyone with a properly\ntrained mind, like yours and mine. Take it this way. No one has ever\ncrossed the South Arabian desert or explored the snow ranges of New\nGuinea, have they? Well, for all anyone can say to the contrary,\npeople may be carried off by fairies every day of the week in New\nGuinea or South Arabia, mayn't they? It may even be the rule there. It\nmay be a working hypothesis among the pygmies of New Guinea that such\na thing _always_ happens--at death, for instance. It would be just as\ngood a working hypothesis as it is that it _never_ happens.\"\n\n\"But, daddy, it would be so extraordinary, wouldn't it?\"\n\n\"Not a bit more extraordinary,\" he said, \"than the inside of a bit of\nradium, or the inside of an egg, for that matter. It is probably\nsimpler for the Urchin to become a fairy than for an egg to become a\nbird, or a caterpillar a butterfly. It would not be nearly as strange\nas it is that there is a water beast which can shed its gills and\nbecome a land beast, or that Uranus moons go round the wrong way. You\ncan't knock it out by any reasoning of that kind, Fiona. It's merely a\nmatter of fact; and if we have found a case we _have_ found a case.\"\n\n\"Then you knew yesterday, daddy?\" she said.\n\n\"I had a very fair idea,\" he answered. \"That is why I was tapping in\nthe cave with a hammer. Can you guess why?\"\n\nFiona saw.\n\n\"To find the rest of the cave,\" she said. \"That is where he would be.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" said the Student. \"These caves cannot end in a wall, as\nthat one seems to. I thought the wall must ring hollow somewhere, and\nthe hollow is in the recess where the stone nearly fell on me. The\napparent end of the cave is not in the line of the true cave at all.\"\n\n\"It is the same place where the stones fell on Mr. Johnson,\" said\nFiona.\n\n\"That is strange,\" said the Student.\n\nAnd then Fiona told about the hand she had seen.\n\n\"Of course, of course,\" said the Student. \"That explains the whole\nthing. They threw the stone down on me too. They did not wish me to\nknow that the wall was hollow just there. They must use it as a\ndoorway. They will have carried the boy through at the moment that you\nturned your back, of course. I suppose he invited them in some way;\nthey could have no power otherwise.\"\n\n\"He said he would go _anywhere_ to find his treasure,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"That would be quite sufficient for them to act on,\" said the Student.\n\n\"Then the stories about the cruelty of the Little People are true,\"\nasked Fiona.\n\n\"Only in part,\" said the Student. \"I take it that they are all sorts,\nlike ourselves. They are, as you know, the vanished debris of all the\npeoples that have helped to make this planet what it is. Good people,\nmany of them. But they cannot altogether love those who have driven\nthem under the ground.\"\n\n\"And who is the old hawker, daddy,\" she asked, \"and what has he to do\nwith it all?\"\n\n\"I can't talk about anything except what you already know,\" said the\nStudent. \"Have you found out yet how to start?\"\n\n\"I am to go up a hill,\" said Fiona. \"And I am going up Heleval now.\nAnd I came to see if you would come with me.\"\n\n\"I wish I could; I wish very much I could,\" said the Student. \"I do\nnot know what you may find; but I know well that if I went with you,\nyou would find nothing but grass and rock. I am too old to see the\nthings you can see, you know. You have to do it alone, little\ndaughter.\"\n\nSo Fiona filled her pocket with bread and cheese, and started; and the\nStudent, after a useless attempt to settle down to his inscriptions,\nset up a little three-inch telescope with which he sometimes\nentertained Fiona on fine nights, gazing at Jupiter's moons or\nSaturn's rings, and followed her across the moor as far as he could.\nIt was the only way he could go with her.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are many worse things in the world than setting out to climb\nHeleval on a beautiful morning on the first of October, when the grass\nin unsunned corners is still pearly with the frost of the night, and\nthe whole earth is touched with the wonderful caress of the cool\nautumn sunshine. Fiona's way lay along the shore road, past the bank\nof heather and fern which in August had been gay with flowers, napperd\nand potentilla, blue milkwort and starry eye-bright, and alive with\nbutterflies, blues and small heaths and pearl-bordered fritillaries;\nbut the flowers were faded now, and in their place, in the little burn\nwhere the hazelnuts grew, was a tapestry of purple burrs and scarlet\nhips. The shore road ended at a little burn; here an old stone bridge,\ngrown over with grass, crossed the pool which in times of spate would\nhold a fat, white sea-trout, and here Fiona and the Urchin had used\nto come in summer to gather globe flowers. From this point a sheep\ntrack led up the valley beside the burn, through great spaces of\nyellowing bracken, by little swampy springs where late forget-me-nots\nstill lingered and an early snipe might rise with a skeep, and across\nlow-lying wastes of bog-myrtle, perfuming all the air with its dying\nleaves; then the ground began to rise, and fern and bog-myrtle gave\nplace to short, hard grass tufted with bulrushes, and beds of matted\nunburnt heather, seamed with rabbit tracks.\n\nAfter a time Fiona left the valley and began to climb the hillside,\nrising steeply through heather and red grass and heather again, most\nof it dying by now, but with patches still in full flower, worked by\nthe wild bees and making the moorland smell like a honey-pot. Then\nmore grass, and limestone ridges, and she stood on the crest of the\nmoor, which billowed away on her right, wave after wave, till it ran\ndown to the low ground and the sea, and rose up on her left till it\nended in the great mass of Heleval, standing up into the cloudless\nsky. The ground before her was scarred with deep peat-hags, their gray\nbanks touched with the tiny scarlet blossoms of the trumpet-moss,\nwhile from their crumbling sides projected bits of the whitened trunks\nof trees long since dead, last vestiges of the forests that had\nclothed the island ere ever the Gael first fought his way in. Walking\nbecame impossible, and she jumped from gray bank to gray bank,\noccasionally floundering across a little lake of soft peat, where the\nwild cotton grass still bloomed, and the mountain hares had left\ntelltale tracks. Now and again a hare itself would scurry away before\nher up one of the peat ditches, rising to the moor level as soon as he\nthought he was out of gunshot and sitting up on his haunches to watch;\nnow and again an old grouse, his head and hackles red as a berry in\nthe sunlight, would rise, crow, and swing away over the brow of the\nmoor. And presently from behind Heleval came drifting a gray bird\nwith a long bill who on hovering wings wheeled three times in the air\nabove her and gave his full spring call, the most wonderful sound that\nthe hills ever hear; then he stooped close over her head and with\nwings spread sickle-wise shot away for the sea. One may see a curlew\non the moor in October, but he will not give his spring call; and\nFiona felt of good courage, for she knew that the bird had called for\nher, to tell her she was in the right way.\n\nSo she came to the foot of Heleval itself, and started to climb the\nsteep slope of short grass, slippery as polished board, which led up\nto the rock pinnacle above; the hillside twinkled with the white scuts\nof rabbits racing up before her to their holes, as round the side of\nthe mountain came their enemy, perhaps the last kite in the island,\nglittering in the sun as only a glede can, till the beautiful cowardly\ncreature caught sight of Fiona and swept away across the valley. She\npassed the great cairn where the hill foxes live, and began the last\nclimb to the pinnacle of rock that fronts the flat crest of the\nmountain. And now something white on the rock, which she had noticed\nfrom below without taking account of, began to become insistent. It\ncould not possibly be a patch of snow yet, she thought. Perhaps the\nshepherd had hung a sheepskin there. But no sheepskin was ever so\nwhite.\n\nThen she came up near the pinnacle, and saw. Standing upright against\nit was a girl, not much older than herself. Her long dark hair blew\nback over the rock; her white body was half hidden in a trembling veil\nof white light, which shimmered and played all about her, waving with\nevery breath of the wind. Her face was beautiful and cold, like a\nfrosty moonrise; her eyes shone like the drip of phosphorescent water\nunder the stars.\n\n\"You have come at last,\" said the girl. \"Every day for many days I\nhave watched for you.\"\n\n\"Who are you, you beautiful girl?\" asked Fiona.\n\n\"I am an Oread,\" said the girl. \"I am the spirit of Heleval.\"\n\n\"I have heard,\" said Fiona, \"that long ago people used to believe that\neverything had a spirit of its own, mountains and rivers and trees. Is\nit true then?\"\n\n\"It _was_ true,\" said the girl. \"The world was full of my sisters,\nonce. There were the Naiads in the streams, and the Hamadryads in the\nwoods, and we, the Oreads, in the mountains. Men were wiser and\nsimpler in those days. But now my sisters are nearly all gone. When a\ntree has become so many cubic feet of timber, how can it shelter a\nDryad? When a stream is merely so many units of waterpower, how can a\nNaiad dwell there? Only the barren mountains, if they contain neither\ngold nor iron, have been left unappraised and unexploited; and a few\nOreads still linger here and there. Once in a while a man fancies that\nhe sees one of us; then he must climb and climb till the day he dies,\nhoping to see her indeed; down in your world people call him mountain\nmad.\"\n\n\"How is it then that I have seen you?\" asked Fiona.\n\nThe Oread touched her bracelet.\n\n\"Partly because of this,\" she said. \"But chiefly because you are a\nchild, and can still see. What is it you have come to ask me?\"\n\n\"How to find the Urchin,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"You know of course where he is?\" the girl asked; and Fiona said,\n\"Yes, he is in Fairyland; but I do not know the way to go.\"\n\n\"That is easily told,\" said the Oread. \"The King of the Woodcock will\nlet you in, and any of his people can tell you where to find him. But\ndo you know the danger? If you do arrive, which is very doubtful, the\nfairies will make you wish a wish; and if your wish be one that does\nnot find favor with them, they will keep you there forever, till you\nlose your memory and yourself and become even as one of them.\"\n\n\"I will take the risk,\" said Fiona, \"for I must go and try to bring\nhim back.\"\n\n\"Why do you want to bring him back?\" asked the Oread. \"He is much\nbetter where he is. Will he thank you for bringing him back? Not a\nbit. You will have the labor and the danger, and he will take it all\nfor granted. And then he will become a man, and what use is that? He\nmay be a financier, and cheat somebody; or a politician, and slander\nsomebody; or a learned man, and hinder wisdom. He is much better in\nFairyland. Why are you going?\"\n\n\"I can't help it,\" said Fiona. \"You can't leave people in the lurch,\nyou know.\"\n\n\"Of course you can,\" said the Oread. \"Be sensible and go home; eat,\ndrink, and be merry.\"\n\n\"O, don't you understand?\" said Fiona. \"Don't you see that there are\nsome things you _can't_ do, whatever anybody says? It's not the reason\nof the thing; it's only just because I am I, and he is lost. You are\nso beautiful; haven't you any heart?\"\n\n\"Neither heart nor soul,\" said the Oread. \"So I ought to be perfectly\nhappy. You have a heart and a soul, and you are not. Which of us is\nthe better off?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't change, anyhow,\" said Fiona.\n\nThe Oread laughed.\n\n\"Of course you wouldn't. It is I who would change if I could. But as I\nhave no soul, and cannot get one, and do not know what it would mean\nto get one, it is no use worrying; it is best to be happy as I am. In\nany case, I would not care to be like men and women. I would not mind\nhaving a child's heart, like you. I had a heart once, but it is so\nlong ago that I have almost forgotten what it was like. How old do you\nthink I am?\"\n\n\"You _look_ about seventeen,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"I am exactly as old as Heleval,\" said the girl. \"And that is more\nhundreds of thousands of years than you or I could ever count. I am\nolder than any of the fishes or birds or beasts; far older than men or\nfairies. Look at that,\" and the Oread swept her arm over the glorious\nprospect around her; the two great wings of the Isle of Mist stretched\nfar out into the sea, the Atlantic throbbing and sparkling under the\nblue sky, and across the loch the jagged gray range of the Cuchullins,\npeak upon peak. \"Isn't it all beautiful? We came into being together.\nHeleval was a giant in those days, a king among other kings; and there\nwas no sea there, and the Cuchullin Hills stood right up into the sky,\nand twisted and bubbled while the Earth cooled and cracked, and my\nsisters of the Fire came out of the cracks and taught us mountain\nspirits the fire dance, and we danced it all night on the great peaks\ntill the stars reeled to watch us. And then the fiery summits cooled\nand sank down, and my sisters of the Fire sank with them, and a mighty\nriver went foaming out down the valley yonder to a distant sea; and\nevery evening my sisters the Naiads came floating up in a circle with\ngarlands of green on their hair, and they taught us mountain spirits\nthe water dance, and we danced it all night on the moonlit water,\nwhile the Ocean crept nearer and nearer to gaze. And then the sea\ncame up, and the river carved Heleval out as you see it, and shrank\naway, and my sisters the Naiads shrank away with it; and the island\nwas covered with great forests, and my sisters the Hamadryads came out\nof the tree-trunks and taught us mountain spirits the tree dance, and\nwe danced it all night in the forest glades, till one night men saw;\nand men felled the forests to capture my sisters of the trees and\nenslave them, but they vanished as the trees vanished. And to-day only\nthe hills are left, and we, the Oreads, a people few and fading away;\nand we no longer dance, for we have lost all our sisters, and we no\nlonger have hearts.\"\n\nThe girl's face had filled with color as she spoke, and her eyes had\nbecome soft, and her voice sounded like the music of waters far away.\nFiona looked at her in wonder.\n\n\"Indeed, indeed, you have your heart still,\" she said. \"And you are\nfar more beautiful even than I thought you were. Come home with me,\nand I will love you as you loved your sisters.\"\n\n\"It is not possible,\" said the Oread. \"It is not free to me to leave\nHeleval. I _am_ Heleval. And I shall be here till one day men find\niron or copper in my mountain, and come up with great engines to carve\nit and tear its flanks and carry it away; and then I shall go too, as\nmy sisters have gone.\"\n\n\"Will you die?\" asked Fiona.\n\n\"I do not know what death means,\" said the girl. \"I shall just go\nback, like a drop of water when it falls into the sea. But do you know\nwhat you have done to-day? For a few moments, because you are brave\nand loyal, you have given me back my heart, which was lost thousands\nof years ago. It will all fade away again; but before it fades, will\nyou kiss me?\"\n\nSo Fiona took her in her arms and kissed her, and then turned and went\ndown the hill. Once she faced round, and saw the Oread standing,\nfrosty and white, against the pinnacle of rock, holding out her arms;\nand she started to go back to her. And even as she moved the whiteness\nvanished, and there was nothing there but the rocky pinnacle, shining\nin the slanting sunlight. Rather sadly she went home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE KING OF THE WOODCOCK\n\n\nThat night Fiona told her father that she believed she had found the\nway to go. They also discussed the question of catching a woodcock;\nwith the result that Fiona was up at dawn and off to the kennels\nbehind the big house, where the Urchin's father kept his dogs. She\nunderstood that she must take advantage both of the night frost and\nthe habits of the keeper, who was apt to lie in bed awhile when no one\nwas about.\n\nThe two setters stood on their hind legs to greet her, and pawed at\nthe bars, whining and dancing with joy. Artemis was white and brown\nand Apollo was white and black. Fiona threw open the door, and they\nwere out in a moment, tumbling over each other as they made wild\nrings round the grass, and dashing back in between to lick her hand.\nShe had to sit down and wait till the first exuberance was over, and\nthey came and lay down at her feet with their tongues out.\n\n\"It is good to be out so early,\" said Apollo.\n\n\"It's so slow in the kennel,\" said Artemis. \"And we can't even talk to\neach other, because Apollo was broken in English and doesn't know any\nGaelic, and I was broken by another man in Gaelic and don't know any\nEnglish.\"\n\n\"You'll interpret, won't you?\" said Apollo. \"Of course we've the\ninternational code, but it doesn't take one much further than the\npasswords.\"\n\nSo for the rest of the morning Fiona had not only to interpret but to\nmake every remark twice over, once in each language. But it will do if\nthe reader takes this for granted.\n\n\"What are we going to do?\" asked Apollo.\n\nSo Fiona explained to them that she wanted to catch a woodcock and ask\nhim a question, and she hoped they would help her.\n\n\"Of course we will,\" said Artemis. \"We know all about woodcock. When\nwe go out with himself, we find them for him and stand still, and then\nhe makes a noise and they fall down dead.\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" said Apollo.\n\n\"Generally,\" corrected Artemis, loyally. \"Will you make them fall down\ndead?\"\n\nFiona explained that she only wanted to catch one and talk to it.\n\n\"We never saw that done,\" said Apollo. \"But we will find one, and then\nyou can catch it.\"\n\n\"It's very early for woodcock,\" said Artemis. \"There won't be any in\nthe heather on the second of October. But there may be an early pair\nin the ferns.\"\n\n\"The first ones always pitch in the ferns on Glenollisdal,\" said\nApollo.\n\nSo to Glenollisdal they went, down the shore road and across the\nlittle bridge and then by the shepherd's track along the top of the\nblack cliffs, over grass and stones all rough and white with the\nfrost. The cold morning air was like new wine, and Fiona had to shade\nher eyes from the low sun. Then the track left the cliffs and began to\nclimb up a sunless valley, across little burns beautiful with fading\nferns, till between two great moorland crags it reached the pass, more\na watercourse now than a track; and then came the cairn at the summit\nof the pass, with its glorious view of sea and mountain, and down at\none's very feet the deep narrow valley that was Glenollisdal, seamed\nfrom crest to foot by its deep burn, which ran half its length through\nfaded brown heather and then out to sea through a huge bed of dying\nbracken, the whole bathed in the bright morning sun.\n\n\"We always come here the first day,\" said Apollo. \"Oh, we are going to\nhave fun.\"\n\nThe three followed the track down to where it passed the top of the\nfern bed. There was a good deal of grass there, dotted with sheep, and\nin one place, looking well out to sea, a curious little hard circle\nin the grass, where no sheep ever came.\n\n\"That is the fairy ring,\" said Artemis. \"Where they dance, you know.\"\n\n\"They dance on All Hallows E'en,\" said Apollo. \"But no one ever sees\nthem.\"\n\n\"Because everyone's afraid to go and look,\" said Artemis.\n\n\"Please, may we start?\" said Apollo.\n\n\"All you have to do is to wait till we point,\" said Artemis, \"and then\ncome to us.\"\n\nAnd the two dogs dashed off into the great fern bed, crossing each\nother backwards and forwards like a pair of scissors as they quartered\nit.\n\nThey were not long about it. Apollo's gallop became a sort of run, a\nyard or two of stealthy crawl, and he stopped dead, tail stiff and\nthroat distended, like a dog of marble, and looked round for Fiona.\nArtemis was just crossing him; she whipped round in her stride as if\nshot and became a second marble image where she stood.\n\nFiona walked down to Apollo. But the ferns rustled a good deal as she\nmade her way through, and as she reached the dog's side the cock rose,\nfive yards away, with a lazy careless flap as if it felt only the\nbother of being disturbed. For a moment she had a vivid impression of\nthe white patches at the end of its fan of tail feathers, and then it\ngradually gathered speed and swept away over the side of the valley;\nfor an instant it showed black as it crossed the sky line, and then it\nwas gone.\n\nApollo turned to Fiona with unhappy eyes and licked her hand. But\nArtemis never moved a muscle.\n\n\"Come to me,\" she said in a low whisper.\n\nVery quietly Fiona reached her side.\n\n\"The other bird is here,\" whispered Artemis, \"just under my nose.\nStoop down.\"\n\nFiona bent down between the stalks of the bracken. The woodcock was\nsitting with its back to her, a little brown bunch of feathers. Very\ngently she put her hand out, and even as she did so she became aware\nof a wise black eye looking at her, though the bird faced the other\nway. Her hand closed on the empty air, and the woodcock, with a\nwonderful spring, was well on its way to seek its mate.\n\n\"I believe I could have put a foot on it,\" said Artemis regretfully.\n\"But of course we are not allowed to.\"\n\n\"I don't know how I came to be so foolish,\" said Fiona. \"I ought to\nhave spoken to it instead of trying to catch it. But I forgot.\"\n\n\"Better luck next time,\" said Apollo; \"we must try again.\"\n\nBut though the dogs worked the whole of the ferns carefully, there was\nno other bird there.\n\nThey came back and lay down beside Fiona, tongues out and panting.\n\n\"It's no use trying the heather yet, I know,\" said Artemis. \"Birds are\nnever in it at this time of year.\"\n\n\"There are some more ferns two miles on,\" said Apollo doubtfully. \"I\nsaw a bird there once, three years ago.\"\n\n\"I wish I knew what to do,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"We can leave it for a day or two and come back,\" said Artemis. \"Those\ntwo birds will be back again to look for each other.\"\n\n\"But they won't be so confiding again,\" added Apollo.\n\nThey were all so preoccupied that they never noticed the shepherd till\nhe was quite close to them. He was striding down the track, a big,\nraw-boned man with red hair; a plaid was thrown loosely across his\nshoulder; at his heels followed a jet black collie.\n\nThe dogs saw him first. It would seem that they did not like him.\nEvery hair on their necks bristled; they shrank close to Fiona, making\nlittle moaning noises in their throats, and flattening themselves as\nif they were trying to burrow into the ground. Their eyes were full of\nterror.\n\n\"Why, Artemis, Apollo, what's the matter?\" said Fiona. Then she looked\nup and saw the shepherd. \"Why, it's only the new shepherd and his\ncollie. There's nothing to be afraid of.\"\n\n\"Collie!\" said Apollo. \"That thing's not a collie. Can't you see?\"\n\n\"Shepherd!\" echoed Artemis. \"That thing's not a shepherd. Oh, can't\nyou see?\"\n\nThe shepherd came up to Fiona, and said that Miss Fiona was out early\nand was there anything he could be doing for her. He spoke in the soft\ncorrect English of the Gael.\n\n\"I came out to catch a woodcock to talk to it,\" said Fiona, \"and we\ncan't catch one.\"\n\nIt occurred to her, even as she spoke, that the statement sounded a\nlittle out of the ordinary. But the rough shepherd never let the least\nsign of this show on his face. He answered in the most matter-of-fact\nway, with the gentle courtesy of the west coast, that there would not\nbe many woodcock in yet, and would he try to catch one for Miss Fiona?\n\n\"Oh, do you think you could?\" said Fiona eagerly. \"I should be so\ngrateful.\"\n\nThen the shepherd saw the trouble of the dogs. He said something to\nthem in a language that was neither English nor Gaelic, and waved his\nown dog to go. The collie went straight off up the moor, and sat down\non the top of the nearest rock ledge, an odd little blot of black on\nthe brown and yellow moorland. Apollo and Artemis got up and shook\nthemselves violently.\n\n\"It was the international password,\" said Apollo. \"Goodness knows\nwhere he got it from. But we have to recognize it.\"\n\n\"I'm not happy,\" said Artemis. \"I was well brought up. I never\nassociated with this sort of thing before.\"\n\nFiona, who knew that a new shepherd had been coming, could make\nnothing of their trouble, and did her best to smooth them down. The\nshepherd led the way up the hill, and on to a little rough plateau\nbroken with rocks and bits of heather, lying under the main rise of\nthe hill where it rounds away toward the Glenollisdal burn. \"I am\nthinking that there should be a woodcock about here,\" he said.\n\n\"This is one of the earliest places in all the heather,\" whispered\nArtemis to Fiona. \"He must know this moor very well.\"\n\n\"It's too early yet, all the same, even for here,\" said Apollo.\n\nIt looked as if Apollo were right. For when at the shepherd's request\nFiona threw the dogs off, they quartered the whole plateau and found\nnothing.\n\nBut the shepherd stuck to his guns.\n\n\"I am thinking that there should be a bird here,\" he said. \"Will Miss\nFiona give me leave to try my own dog?\"\n\nFiona nodded and called the setters to heel; the shepherd waved his\nhand, and the black collie came racing to him. Some collies will work\na ground like a spaniel, and some will even do a little pointing, but\nthe black collie troubled himself neither with one nor the other. When\nthe shepherd spoke to him, he just cantered straight forward to a\nsmall patch of heather on the sunless side of a rock, where the frost\nstill lingered, and there sat down quite unconcerned, as though the\nmatter in hand were altogether beneath the scope of his talents.\n\n\"I think he has a bird,\" said the shepherd.\n\n\"I tried that place,\" said Apollo. \"There's nothing there.\"\n\nBut the shepherd had gone up to his dog and was peering carefully into\nthe heather. Then he beckoned Fiona.\n\n\"Does Miss Fiona see the bird?\" he asked, pointing.\n\nFiona looked long before she saw. The woodcock had squeezed himself\nright into the roots of a frost-covered clump of heather, and even\nwhen the heather was parted nothing showed but his little orange tail,\nwith its white and black points.\n\n\"Shall I catch him for Miss Fiona?\" asked the shepherd; and Fiona\nsaid, \"Oh yes, please, if you will.\"\n\nThe shepherd knelt down and brought his two great hands slowly to\neither side of the tuft of heather; then he closed them with a snap,\nand drew out the largest woodcock Fiona had ever seen. It struggled\nand thrashed at his wrists with its powerful wings.\n\n\"Will Miss Fiona take the bird now?\" he said. \"Just behind the wings,\nwith her thumbs on its back.\"\n\nSo Fiona took her bird, and as she did so its back-seeing eye caught\nthe glint of her copper bangle. It stopped thrashing with its wings\nand lay quite still in her hands.\n\n\"Oh, I say,\" he said, \"why didn't you say before, instead of employing\nthese people and frightening an honest bird out of his senses?\"\n\n\"My dogs couldn't find you,\" said Fiona. \"And I think it was so good\nof the shepherd to find you for me.\"\n\n\"Shepherd!\" said the woodcock. \"That wasn't a shepherd. And it wasn't\na collie either.\"\n\nFiona suddenly recollected that she had not yet thanked the shepherd,\nand turned to do so. But the shepherd and collie were gone. They must\nhave walked very quickly to have turned the corner of the hill\nalready.\n\n\"Where did he go?\" she asked Artemis. Artemis shivered.\n\n\"To his own place, I hope,\" said Artemis severely. \"Well brought up\ndogs should not be asked to associate with things like that.\"\n\n\"But it was only the new shepherd,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"There's the new shepherd,\" said Artemis, nodding toward a distant\nslope, where a figure with a brown collie could be seen gathering\nsheep.\n\n\"What were they, then?\" asked Fiona.\n\n\"Two of the Little People, of course,\" said Apollo. \"Oh dear, oh dear,\nI'm afraid you'll have trouble.\"\n\n\"One generally dies,\" said Artemis, with cheerful consolation.\n\n\"But they were very nice to me indeed,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"Of course they were,\" said the woodcock. \"You're privileged, you\nknow. _We_ all know it. And don't you mind the dogs, my dear. They\nare good creatures, but they and their forbears have lived so long\nwith humans that they have forgotten most of the things we know. They\nare nearly as blind as humans now, saving your presence, my dear. And\nnow what is it you want with me?\"\n\n\"I want to find the King of the Woodcock,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"Bless your heart,\" said the bird, \"and who do you suppose We are? You\nnever saw a woodcock Our size before, did you?\" And indeed Fiona never\nhad; for he was as big as a young grouse.\n\n\"Eighteen and a half ounces, if I'm a pennyweight,\" said the woodcock.\n\"I am the heaviest king that we have ever had. Will you please put me\ndown if you want to talk to me? It is hardly consonant with my royal\ndignity to be held. I shan't fly away; _noblesse oblige_, you know.\"\n\nSo Fiona put him down, and he arranged himself like a bunch of\nfeathers on the ground, his head well back between his shoulders and\nhis beady black eyes looking all round him at once.\n\n\"Why didn't Apollo find you?\" asked Fiona.\n\n\"No scent,\" said the woodcock, proudly. \"I am not like a common bird.\nNo dog can find a king woodcock; and no dog ever has. We can be beaten\nout of a wood, of course; my great-great-grandfather was shot like\nthat when the family lived in Norfolk, many years ago. So we came up\nhere to the open heather, and have been quite safe ever since. And now\nwhat do you want, my dear?\"\n\n\"I was told you could let me into Fairyland,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"I can let you in by the back door,\" the bird said. \"But are you\nreally going to Fairyland? You'll need some courage, you know, if you\nare going the back way.\"\n\n\"Is there another way?\" asked Fiona.\n\n\"There's the front door, of course,\" said the bird. \"But no one can go\nthat way without an invitation. Have you an invitation?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"A pity,\" said the woodcock. \"There is no danger that way. But without\nan invitation you could not even find the door. As it is, you'll have\nto go in by the back way and take your risks.\"\n\n\"I have to go, whatever they are,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"_Noblesse oblige_,\" said the woodcock. \"Quite so, quite so. Have you\nbeen told about the wish?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Fiona. \"I know about that.\"\n\n\"The other thing,\" continued the bird, \"is that you must stick to the\nmain path. Remember that. You must not turn out of it for any reason\nof any kind. You'll see lots of side paths, and you'll see other\nthings too; but if you once leave the main path by so much as one step\nyou'll never get home again. There are no short cuts to Fairyland.\"\n\n\"Thank you so much,\" said Fiona. \"But how shall I know the main path?\"\n\nWith his long bill the woodcock tweaked the point feather out of one\nof his wings and gave it to her.\n\n\"This will take you through,\" he said. \"It will point the right way\nfor you; that's why it is called the point feather. Just follow it. If\nyou are frightened and want to leave your search and come home, tap on\nthe ground with it and you will be back in Glenollisdal. But somehow I\ndon't think you will. And whatever you do, don't lose it. When you\nreach the fairy grove, show it to the guardian, and he will let you\nin; and mind you don't go in unless he shows you its fellow. Oh, I'm\nall right, thank you; I'll have grown others long before they are\nneeded. There is no great rush to Fairyland on the part of people who\nhaven't _got_ to go, my dear.\"\n\n\"It all sounds so much more difficult than I thought,\" said poor\nFiona.\n\n\"Nothing worth while is ever easy,\" said the woodcock. \"And now I'll\nshow you where to start. By the bye, you can't take the dogs with\nyou.\"\n\n\"This dog wouldn't go,\" said Artemis, shivering. \"That black collie's\nthere somewhere.\"\n\n\"Don't bother about us,\" said Apollo. \"We'll be home long before the\nkeeper is out of bed.\"\n\nSo Fiona took a warm farewell of the two dogs, who lamented her sad\nfate and wished her luck all in one breath, and then set off homeward\nwith their long swinging gallop.\n\n\"And now, if you want to be in time for the great gathering, which you\nhumans call Hallow E'en, you'll have to hurry,\" said the woodcock.\n\n\"But it's nearly a month to Hallow E'en,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"You'll want every minute of it,\" said the bird. \"Come on.\"\n\nAnd they started off for the fairy ring, the woodcock pattering along\non his little feet at a pace which would have surprised anyone who had\nnever seen a woodcock do it.\n\n\"How come you to be doorkeeper?\" asked Fiona, as they went.\n\n\"Hereditary,\" said the bird. \"We used to go to all the lost lands, you\nknow, like Lyonesse and Lemuria and Bresil and Atlantis. We still\ncross Ireland once a year and pass on into the Atlantic to salute the\nsite of Plato's island, before we settle in Britain. And Fairyland is\nonly another of the lost lands. Here we are.\"\n\nThey had come to the fairy ring.\n\n\"There's nothing more I can do now,\" said the woodcock. \"A straight\nstep and a stout heart, my dear.\"\n\nFiona took the feather in her hand and stood in the fairy ring.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nFIONA IN THE FAIRY-WORLD\n\n\nIt was very, very dark. Fiona could not see her hand if she held it\nclose before her eyes. It was just blackness. Only one thing broke it;\nfar away--many miles it might be--was a tiny speck of white, like the\npoint of a pin. All round her in the dark were little soft sounds;\nthey brushed against her feet, and passed before her face; little soft\nsounds, apparently without bodies. She held the tiny point-feather\nfirmly in the fingers of her left hand, and touched it from time to\ntime with her right, as she felt her way, one foot before the\nother--she could not walk--towards the point of light. And with her\nand about her went the small soft sounds; one would have said that\nthey whispered and chuckled in the darkness.\n\nHow far and how long she went she could never guess; there was nothing\nby which to measure time or distance, and evidently she was not going\nto feel hunger or fatigue.\n\nAt last she became conscious of a change. The white speck of light was\ngrowing brighter and larger; and the small soft sounds were becoming\ntangible. One brushed past her face, and she felt it; she put out a\nhand, and there was a scuffing and chuckling, as if they were playing\nblind man's buff with her. Then the light began to take shape; it was\na circular pool lying on the floor and wall of the avenue of blackness\ndown which she was passing; and it came from something on the other\nside. And the little soft sounds crowded round her; they laughed, they\nwhispered, they clutched at her dress; they were trying to guide her\nin a certain direction. She tried to shake them off, and found that,\nthough they could touch her, she could not touch them. And then she\ncame into the pool of light.\n\nThe light came down a sort of short passage between rocks, with a\nwell-trodden floor; and at the end of it, not twenty yards from where\nshe stood, she could see the fairy grotto. One grand white carbuncle,\nas big as an arc lamp, hung from the roof, filling the grotto with\ndazzling white light; and the radiance of the carbuncle was flung back\nin a million points of new splendor from the walls of the grotto,\nshifting and shimmering like the rainbow across a waterfall, ruby and\norange, yellow and emerald, sapphire and violet, changing as each new\nfacet came into play; for the walls of the grotto were set thick with\ncut jewels of every hue and color. A glorious sight it looked; and\nFiona suddenly became aware that the soft things that clutched at her\ndress and the soft things that whispered in her ear, were all trying\nto draw her toward the beautiful grotto. But she felt her feather, and\nit pointed straight on into the dark. So she moved forward; and with\nthe first step she saw the trap. The floor of the beautiful grotto\nyawned wide, showing the horrible abyss beneath it; and the darkness\nwas full of soft flutterings, and the chuckling of mocking laughter.\nBut they touched her no more at the time; and suddenly the darkness\nfell away on each side like a wall, and she stepped out into daylight.\n\nShe was in the desert. The yellow burning sand stretched all round\nher, a mass of glittering particles that made the eyes sore; wave\nafter wave, it went billowing away to the red burning hills that faced\nand flung back the burning sun. Mile after mile she stumbled along in\nthat aching heat; and then, as she topped a great hillock of sand, she\nsuddenly saw the fairy city. Very beautiful it looked, rose-pink on a\nwooded island in a fair lake of water, whose blue mirror gave back\nevery trembling cupola and minaret; and toward it, down a broad track\nmarked by tamarisk bushes, went a goodly company of merchants, with\ntinkling bells on their camels' necks and golden ornaments on their\ncamels' heads, the company of a chief who rode ahead on a white Arab\nsteed with his long jezail laid across his saddle-bow. Here could no\ndoubt be; and Fiona all but stepped on to the broad path in the track\nof the caravan. But even as she turned she caught sight of the feather\nand checked herself just in time; and the beautiful city of mirage\nmelted away, and there was no caravan there, but only sand marked by\nthe bones of men, and in place of the tamarisk bushes were gray\nvultures feasting in a row. She followed the feather straight on\nacross the burning desert; and on a sudden she walked out of the sand\ninto shade.\n\nShe was out in the forest. Huge trees rose like the pillars of a\ncathedral nave, branching far above her head and shutting out the\ndaylight; and up their trunks ran starred creepers of every hue,\nfighting their way up to the sun. Down from the branches hung orchids\nof all fantastic shapes, in long still streamers, and great moon moths\nfluttered round them, taking their joy in the dim light. And the\nfarther she went the thicker grew the forest, and the more oppressive\nthe airless heat. Trailing plants ran across her feet and tried to\ntrip her up; the great trunks closed together till there was barely\nroom to force a way between; the thorns of the creepers tore at her\nflesh, and instead of the beautiful orchids there came on the trees\nhuge funguses red as blood. And the small soft voices began again;\nthey had caught her up; the forest was full of the same little sounds\nwhich she had heard before, whispering and chuckling and fingering her\ndress. And then, just as it seemed impossible to fight a way farther\nthrough the dense jungle, she came to the open glade. Full of grass\nand flowers and sunshine it was, and across it ran a gurgling brook,\ncrossed by a little plank bridge; a sweet breeze moved the grass, and\nbeyond the brook two little spotted deer were feeding; far in the\ndistance were tiny peaks of snow. The soft fingers were all tugging at\nFiona's dress, impelling her down the glade; but she had had ample\nwarning of those soft fingers, and she saw that the feather pointed\nstraight on through the tangled forest. And even as she moved she saw\nthat the little bridge was the back of a great water-python; and the\nfingers loosed their hold of her dress, and the air was full of soft\nwhisperings and laughter. And she walked straight on into the tangled\nthicket before her; and the forest parted to right and left, and she\nwalked out.\n\nShe was in a fair country of green grass and temperate airs, where the\npath lay true and straight before her through vineyards and groves of\noranges. Here and there a cherry tree swung its crown of white blossom\nabove her head, or a cypress stood up tall and straight as a sentinel\non duty. Purple flags bloomed under the rocks, and on a clump of brown\norchises sat two little jewelled butterflies, burnished green as old\ncopper; up the path of the sunlight came a swallowtail with its\nstately glancing flight. Everything spoke to her here of fair peace\nand security; and when she heard the air still rustling with little\nsoft sounds and chuckles, and knew that they had followed her, she\nbegan to wonder how it was that, now that she knew their ways, they\nshould think it worth while. And they were becoming most active. The\nsoft sounds brushed all round her; the soft fingers grasped her arms;\ntiny weightless bodies behind her seemed to be impelling her forward.\n\nAnd then before her she saw the inevitable two paths: the broad flat\npath that passed through a fair orchard of lemon trees, where the\nsunlight threw chequers on to the grass beneath, starred with scarlet\nand purple anemones; and the narrow stony track, terribly steep, which\ntoiled away up the bare hillside in heat radiated from the rocks.\nNever had the soft sounds been so insistent; a myriad gentle hands\nwere trying to steer her, even to push her by force, toward the lemon\ntrees. She saw the folly of them so very clearly; and her foot was\nactually raised to take the first step up the hill path, when she felt\nthe feather turn of itself in her hand, and she became ice from head\nto foot as she realized that she had all but destroyed herself by\ndespising her opponents. They had striven this time to force her into\nthe _true_ path, believing that she would certainly take the opposite\none.\n\nShe saw now the end of the fatal hill path, the sudden crumbling\nprecipice which flung men on to pointed rocks far below; and the air\nbehind her became full of woe, voiceless wailings and silent howls of\nrage, and she saw what she had fought against; a troop of small\nformless black things, like immature bats, with pale fingers, that\nfled moaning down the path of the sunlight. She knew now that they\nwould not vex her again.\n\nShe passed on through the lemon orchard, and out on to a bare\nhillside, rough with stones and dotted here and there with great oak\ntrees; plants of asphodel were thrusting their blossoms up among the\ncoarse tufts of grass, and far below, in all its laughing splendor,\nlay the sea. And as she turned the shoulder of the hill she saw the\ntemple, a fair Doric temple of gray marble, standing in lonely beauty\namong the scattered oak trees. Its metopes were carved with the\nfigures of gods and heroes of an older day, and round it ran a frieze\nof warriors who fought with Amazon women. The singing was just over,\nit seemed; and the double choir of white-robed girls, who had been\ngiving strophe and antistrophe of some festival ode, had broken into\ngroups, these playing at ball, those reclining in the shade or\nstrolling about with their arms round each other's waists. In her\nchair in the cool portico sat the fair-faced matronly priestess, still\ncrowned with red roses, and before her two little boys poured wine\ninto a crystal goblet. And as she saw Fiona she rose from her chair\nand greeted her by name, calling her happy that she had now come\nsafely through the path of danger and that her troubles were ended.\n\n\"Come here to us,\" she said, \"and rest, for it is but a little way now\nthat you must go, and there is ample time; slake your thirst at this\ncrystal goblet, and lie awhile in the shade, while these maidens crown\nyou with flowers.\"\n\nBut Fiona had learnt her lesson, and she looked at her feather; and\nthe feather pointed straight along the hillside. So she passed on\nwithout a look or a word; and as she passed came a noise as of the\nearth opening; and the pillars of the temple bowed themselves, and the\nmiddle of the building collapsed stone by stone, till only the outer\ncolumns remained among a mass of fallen blocks, and triglyph and\nmetope and sculptured frieze lay in fragments about them. And among\nthe ruins a red fox with two cubs sat and snarled, as she watched a\ncompany of toads crawling in the dust; and of that fair scene all that\nhad not changed was the pallid asphodel, the asphodel whose home is in\nthose other meadows where walk the pallid dead.\n\nAnd as Fiona passed on, the hillside itself dissolved in mist, and\nthere before her lay the fairy grove. And the guardian of the grove,\nwith white beard sweeping the ground, and old trembling hands, came\nout to meet her. And she showed him her feather, and from his belt he\ndrew out and held up its fellow; and she knew that the path of danger\nwas over.\n\n\"No one has come through by the way you have come for more years than\nmy old memory can follow,\" he said. \"They always fail at the lemon\norchard. How did you escape?\"\n\nAnd Fiona told him how the feather had turned in her hand of itself.\n\nThe old man bowed almost to the ground.\n\n\"That was the direct grace of the King,\" he said. \"You must be a\nperson of the greatest consequence.\"\n\nAnd when Fiona said, \"I am just an ordinary girl,\" he again bowed low\nand said: \"Young lady, I take leave to doubt it.\"\n\nThen he gave Fiona her directions for finding the King, and warned her\nthat she must not loiter in the fairy grove, for the fairies were\nalready gathering for All Hallows E'en.\n\nSo Fiona walked swiftly through the grove, not seeing one half of its\nbeauties, though she would have loved to have lingered among the\ntrees. For in the grove grew every tree and plant famous in legend or\nin history, of which not the tenth part can be told here. There was\nthe Norse ash, whose roots bind together the framework of the earth;\nthere the Irish hazel, of whose nuts could a man but taste he would\nknow all knowledge and all wisdom; there the African pomegranate, but\nfor whose sweetness the Corn-spirit would have disdained to stay\nbeneath the earth, and the race of men would have perished. There\nstood Deborah's terebinth and Diotima's plane, and the Bo-tree beneath\nwhose branches Gautama Buddha sought and found the path of\nEnlightenment. There grew the paper-reeds of Egypt, the repository\nthrough many centuries of a whole world's learning, the paper-reeds\nthat grow no longer in their old home, even as the prophet Isaiah\nforetold; and there the clove, for whose perfumed pistils great\nnations had warred together and brave men died under torture. There\nstood the English trees, the oak and the white acacia, which had built\nthe three-deckers for the greatest sea captain the world has seen.\nThere was that great traveller, the mulberry, which had left its home\non the Yangtse to follow the old Silk Route across Asia; which had\ncrossed the stony Gobi, where wild camels run and the Djinn light\ntheir lamps at night to decoy travellers; which had seen the Khotan\ngirls wading knee-deep in the Khotan River, searching for the previous\nwhite jade which should make gods for China, as erstwhile for Nineveh\nand Troy; which had skirted the wandering lake of Lop-nor, and had\ntarried awhile in old dead cities, now buried under the sands of the\ndreaded Taklamakan; which had seen the turquoise mines of Khorassan,\nand voyaged on the broad Oxus stream, till from Iran its way lay clear\nto the west. There grew the cedars of the Atlas, which had aided their\ngreat mountain to support the sky, and had sailed south with Hanno to\nthe Guinea Gulf, to bring home those gorilla hides which lay on the\naltar of Melcarth at Carthage; and there the most famous of all the\ntrees of the forest, the proud cedars of Lebanon, which had once\nexulted with their voices over the fall of the king of Assyria, which\nhad built for Solomon his temple and his house for the daughter of\nPharaoh, and which had given to the princes of Tyre the ships in\nwhich, greatly daring, they had ranged the three seas, bringing home\nthe gold of India and the silver of Spain and the tin of Cornwall, the\nwealth of the east and the west, myrrh and frankincense and purple\ndye, ivory and apes and peacocks. And last of all was the twisted gray\nolive, beloved of gray-eyed Pallas Athene, the symbol of all that\nraises man above the savage, the tree in whose train, as it moved out\nfrom its home in Asia, had grown up all the civilizations that ringed\nthe Mediterranean.\n\nSo Fiona passed through the grove and came out on a broad place of\ngrass, and right before her stood the fairy ring. But not such a one\nas the ring on Glenollisdal which she knew. This ring was of vast\nsize, and round it grew in a circle huge red toadstools splotched with\nwhite, the red toadstools from which the witches of Lapland had used\nto brew philtres of love and death. But vast as it was, it could not\nhold all the creatures that swarmed round it. It was a gathering such\nas Fiona had never dreamt of. On the outskirts stood an innumerable\nhost of little strange beings, of every sort and shape, elves and\nbrownies, gnomes and pixies, trolls and kobolds, goblins and\nleprechauns; and the babel of them as they whispered together was like\nthe noise of a flock of fieldfares. And within them and around the\nring itself stood the fairies.\n\nAll the lost peoples and nations and languages, it seemed, were there\nin miniature; everyone that Fiona had ever heard her father speak of,\nand many another of which even he knew nothing. There were fairies of\nthe Old Stone peoples, brave-eyed, clad in pelts of the saber-tooth,\nbearing the blade-bones of bisons on which were carved pictures of the\nmammoth and the reindeer. Fairies from Egypt, clad in fine white linen\nwith girdles of topaz and aquamarine, with fillets round their brows\nfrom which the golden uraeus lifted its snake's head, bearing blossoms\nof the blue lotus. Fairies from Babylon, glowing in coats of scarlet\nor of many colors, their eyes deep with immemorial learning, bearing\nclay tablets on which were signs like the footprints of birds. Fairies\nfrom Crete, light of foot in the dance, in flounced skirts adorned\nwith golden butterflies, crowned with yellow crocuses and bearing\nvases on which were painted the creatures of the sea, nautilus and\nflying fish and polyp. Fairies of the Iberians, black-haired and\nblack-eyed, clad in black cloaks, small and shy and dusty, bearing\ningots of tin. Fairies from Cappadocia, in peaked shoes, and pelisses\nof lion's skin trimmed with the fur of hares, moving to the clash of\ncymbals, bearing grapes and ears of corn. Fairies from Mexico, with\nheavy cheek bones, resplendent in mantles woven of the plumage of the\nquetzal bird, carrying bricks of gold. Fairies from Ethiopia, black as\nthe black diamond, clad in leopard skins and plumed with the feathers\nof ostriches, carrying tusks of ivory. Fairies from the land of Sheba,\nwell skilled in riddles, in cloaks of camel's hair buckled with clasps\nof onyx, bearing caskets of agate filled with spices. Buddhist fairies\nof the Naga race, with the sevenfold cobra's hood springing from their\nshoulders and shadowing them, languorous and heavy-eyed, carrying\ncrimson water lilies. Fairies from Cambodia, in stiff dresses of cloth\nof gold, with gilded faces and scarlet eyebrows, bearing pagoda bells\nwhich tinkled. Fairies of the Golden Horde, bandy-legged, with pug\nnoses and slits of eyes, clad in dyed sheepskins and carrying the\ntails of horses. Fairies of the Picts, tattooed to the eyelids, their\nplaids dyed with crotal and the root of the yellow iris, wearing\nbadges of mountain fern or bog-myrtle and bearing jars of heather ale.\nFairies of Britain, in deerskin cloaks fastened with brooches of\nenamel, with golden torques circling their throats, bearing sprays of\nmistletoe. Fairies of the Tuatha-de, with all the youth of the world\nin their eyes, clad in robes of saffron, crowned with rowans and\nbearing harps. Fairies from Greece, erect and lissom, beautiful as a\nsculptor's dream, crowned with wild olive and bearing each the roll of\na book. Fairies of old England, in Lincoln green, with feathers of the\ngray goose in their caps, bearing bows of yew and branches of the may.\nFairies from Baghdad, radiant as visions of the night-time, their\nturbans and their crooked scimitars jewelled with rubies of Badakshan,\nbearing magic lamps. Fairies from Quinsay, dainty as porcelain, their\nsilken robes embroidered with blossoms of the almond and the peach\ntree, bearing jars of coral lac wrought in the likeness of dragons,\nand on their heads the poppy flowers that bring sleep.\n\nAnd in the middle of the ring stood a throne carved out of a single\nberyl, green as the sea; and on the throne sat the King of the\nFairies, with eyes bright as the dawn and deep as the sea caves, in a\ncloak of Tyrian purple with clasps of amethyst. His crown and sceptre\nwere of white gold, white gold which has long since perished out of\nthe upper world, and in the end of his sceptre was set a double\npentacle of clear crystal brought from the Island of Desire. And in\nthe beryl throne, if he looked at it through the crystal, were shown\nto him the reflections of all things that he might wish to see. If he\nlooked directly, he saw all that had happened in the world in the\npast; and if he reversed the crystal, he saw all that should happen in\nthe future; but if he held the pentacle edgewise, then he saw the\npresent, which no man ever sees, and was the greatest magic of all.\nRound the throne stood his guards, black as Moors, in jackets and\ntrousers of emerald green clasped with orange zircons; half of them\nbore trumpets of silver, and half of them carried spears with heads of\ngreen obsidian as sharp as steel. And on either side of the throne, on\na stool, sat a strange creature, a little wizened elf with a large\nbook on his knee. One wore a white cap, and he bore an inkhorn and a\nbundle of long quills; the other wore a black cap, and he bore a\npenknife.\n\nFiona edged herself as far forward as she could into the ring of\nstrange beings, and found herself next an old Leprechaun with a face\nlike a wrinkled apple, who seemed quite inclined to be friendly.\n\n\"A human!\" he said. \"We do not see as many as we used to. But they say\nthere are two to be tried to-night. As you see, we have attempted\nsomething out of the ordinary in the way of a welcome.\" And he waved\nhis arm proudly round the enormous assembly. \"Had far to come?\" he\nasked.\n\nFiona told him how long it had taken her.\n\n\"That's nothing,\" he said. \"There are people here to-night who, as\nsoon as the dance is over, will start travelling as fast as they can,\nand will only just arrive in time for next year's meeting. Good for\nthe shoemaking trade!\"\n\n\"Where do they try the prisoners?\" she asked him.\n\n\"Here, in the ring,\" said the Leprechaun. \"The King tries them.\nThere's the Public Prosecutor,\" and he pointed to a fairy of pompous\naspect, with a hooked nose and a Roman toga, and a roll under his arm.\n\"He's a terrible fellow. And there's the King's Remembrancer, those\ntwo with the books.\"\n\n\"Why are there two?\" asked Fiona.\n\n\"One to remember and one to forget, of course, stupid,\" said the\nLeprechaun. \"Whereever were you educated? Do you think kings want to\nremember _everything_?\"\n\n\"It must be very easy forgetting,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"Hardest job in Fairyland,\" said the Leprechaun. \"I suppose you know\nlots of people with perfect memories; but you never knew one with a\nperfect forgetfulness, eh? Whitecap there only has to write his book\nup; but poor Blackcap--he's the one that forgets--his book is written\nup to start with, and he has to get the pages clean again with his\npenknife. He never gets them _quite_ clean. They say he has nightmare\nevery night over the things he can't forget altogether.\"\n\nThe King had been talking to one of the officers of his guard. He now\nrose and held out his sceptre, and there was a great silence round the\nFairy ring.\n\n\"Before we dance to-night,\" he said, \"we have, as you know, to try two\nprisoners.\" He turned to the officer of the guard, and said, \"Let them\nbe produced.\"\n\nThe officer at once produced the Urchin from nowhere in particular, as\na conjurer produces half-crowns. The boy looked rather large among the\nLittle People, but otherwise he was much as Fiona had last seen him;\nhis shirt and knickerbockers were covered with earthstains and he\nstill had the same length of useless rope coiled round his waist.\n\nBut Jeconiah? Was this the prosperous financier, this wretched apology\nfor a living being which the officer held out on the palm of his hand?\nNot two inches high, its white waistcoat hanging in loose flaps,\nspeechless, and wide-eyed with terror and abject entreaty, it was like\nthe ghost of a parody; the officer had to set it on one of the great\ntoadstools, and mark the place with a stick, lest it should be lost.\nThe King regarded it with interest.\n\n\"I understood that the elder prisoner was a very stout man,\" he said.\n\n\"That was so, your Majesty,\" said the officer. \"He was so stout that\nwe thought it useless to attempt to take him through the doorway as he\nwas, so we left his body behind and only brought away the essential\npart of him. This is all that there really is of him, sire; the rest\nwas wind. When we began to sift him we were afraid that he had no\nreal existence at all, and that there would be nothing to bring\nbefore you.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" said the King, \"there's enough of him to be tried,\nanyhow. Are the prisoners provided with counsel?\"\n\nThe Public Prosecutor was understood to say that they were not yet\nrepresented.\n\n\"Counsel had better be assigned them in the usual way,\" said the King.\n\"Catch, somebody.\"\n\nHe took a guinea from his pocket and flung it, apparently without\nlooking, into the crowd. But thick as the crowd was, the guinea passed\nstraight through the forest of hands held out for it, and fell into a\ntiny brown hand behind them. Fiona knew where she had seen that hand\nbefore.\n\nThe owner of the hand at once stepped forward into the ring. He seemed\nto be the most singular being in Fairyland. Fiona's first impression\nwas that he was just a large bald head, the color of parchment and\nwrinkled all over; and this impression remained, even when she\nrealized that he did possess a small body, with the usual allowance of\narms and legs. Out of his great head looked a pair of quite\nincongruous eyes, bright as beads, and full of happy drollery. Behind\nhim came a couple of stout goblins, each laden with dusty law books.\nThey piled the books up in a stack on the ground, and the singular\ncreature with the head proceeded to climb to the top of the stack,\nwhere he sat down, cracking his fingers and laughing hugely at some\njest of his own, evidently on the best of terms both with himself and\nhis audience. Then he caught Fiona's eye, and deliberately winked at\nher; but somehow it carried no offence, for the creature seemed\nabsolutely free from malice.\n\n\"Privilege honorable profession defend oppressed,\" he remarked; \"duty\nclients submit large number points,\" and he patted the books he sat\non. He had a habit of clipping his words as he spoke which was totally\ndestructive of the smaller parts of speech, and made his remarks\nsound like a series of unedited cablegrams.\n\n\"We will take the younger prisoner first,\" announced the King;\nwhereupon the Public Prosecutor proceeded to read, all in one breath,\nthe indictment against the Urchin, to the effect that he did on or\nabout the 20th day of September then last past in despite of the peace\nof the realm and the safety of the lieges with a stone or some other\nmissile or thing throw at and break the wing of or otherwise hit, cut,\nhurt, maim, destroy and do wrong to one of the said lieges, to wit, a\nshore lark, and so forth. When he had finished, instead of evidence\nbeing taken, the King merely glanced into the beryl throne.\n\n\"True in fact,\" he said. \"Any defence?\"\n\nThe creature on the bookstack began at once.\n\n\"Please Majesty duty client submit series points. First point no\nintention.\"\n\nBut Fiona did not wait to hear what it had to say. Forcing her way\ninto the ring, she said:\n\n\"Please, your Majesty, it was my fault. I told him he couldn't.\"\n\nThe King turned to look at her.\n\n\"So this is the young lady,\" he said. \"Very good of you to come, you\nknow. We rarely receive visitors now. We shall try to make you welcome\nwhen the trial is over.\" He turned again to the bookstack, and said:\n\"I will hear the defence.\"\n\n\"It was my fault, your Majesty,\" said Fiona again.\n\nWith grave patience the King started to explain to her.\n\n\"Your part of it was your fault, of course. But we are not trying you,\nfor you have come here of your own free will, so we can neither try\nnor punish. But his part of it was equally his own fault, and unless\nthere is a good defence he will have to be punished.\"\n\nThe creature on the bookstack was nodding and signing to Fiona, but\nshe was too engrossed with a single thought to notice him.\n\n\"Then I claim my wish, your Majesty,\" she said.\n\n\"Quite in order,\" said the King. \"The trial will be suspended while\nthe young lady wishes. Officer!\"\n\nAnd immediately the fairy ring was strewn with a strange collection of\nobjects, looking rather like the contents of an old curiosity shop\nthat had gone bankrupt. The officer held them up one by one for Fiona\nto see.\n\n\"When we heard you were coming,\" said the King, \"we collected a few\nlittle things for your inspection. It is so long since we had any use\nfor any of them that many of them seem to have developed serious\ndefects, which we regret; but they are the best we could find at short\nnotice. This,\" he pointed to an old ring, \"is a common wishing ring.\nIt used to do all the usual things. The genie attached to it has\nunfortunately become very deaf with age; but if you can make him hear,\nwe believe he is still in fair working order. This,\" as a frayed\ngirdle was held up, \"is the famous cestus of Aphrodite, which she\nlent to Helen of Troy. Its wearer used to become the most beautiful\nand unpopular creature in the world. It will still confer beauty,\nthough hardly suited to the modern style; the unpopularity we\nguarantee. This,\" pointing to a huge book, \"contains the truth of that\nwhich in your world passes as knowledge. It would delight your father.\nHe might publish selected chapters, and watch the critics cut them to\npieces. This,\" as a battered trumpet was exhibited, \"is Fame. Your\npraises would be sung all over the world; and the world would say,\n'Never mind what she has _achieved_; tell us about her faults.' This,\"\nand he contemplated an old iron sceptre, \"is Power. You would become a\ngreat ruler, and would probably die in exile. And under this,\" and he\npointed to a sheet of black velvet, thrown loosely over some object,\n\"under this is the treasure of the Isle of Mist, which I am told that\nyou have heard of. Do any of these please you? If not, we have\nothers.\"\n\nFiona never thought about it for a moment, of course. She had not done\nall that she had done to hesitate now. She did not look at the King's\nface, and she took not the least notice of the creature with the head,\nwho was dancing about in a perfect agony, trying to attract her\nattention.\n\n\"Please your Majesty,\" she said in breathless haste, \"I came here to\nfind the Urchin and take him home with me. That is my wish.\"\n\nShe had hardly spoken the words when her instinct told her something\nwas wrong. A sort of chill seemed to run through the air, and the\ncolor seemed to go out of the fairy world. The creature with the head\nstopped dancing about and began to wring its little hands. She looked\nup at the King's face, and read there, was it disappointment? was it\nregret? She hardly knew.\n\n\"A very natural and proper wish,\" said the King gravely. \"We shall of\ncourse accept it as such, and grant it with great pleasure. The\nyounger prisoner is discharged. Take the next case.\"\n\nAnd then Fiona saw. She saw the thing which had once been Jeconiah,\nwith that look of abject terror and entreaty in its eyes; and she\nrealized that it would have meant nothing to her to have included\nJeconiah in her wish, and that for Jeconiah it would have meant\neverything. And she realized also that, worthless and evil as he had\nbeen in life, selfish, mean, a thief and a liar, he was still a human\nbeing, and had a soul and possibilities of which the fairy world could\nknow nothing. She felt a wave of humiliation pass over her; and she\nresolved that, whatever he was, and whatever happened, she would not\ngo home without Jeconiah.\n\nThe charges against Jeconiah were then read: stealing a treasure, and\nbeing a worthless character.\n\n\"Any defence?\" said the King.\n\nThe creature with the head got to work.\n\n\"Please Majesty,\" he said, \"admit second count. Character worthless.\nObject pity however not vindictive punishment. Behalf client offer\nsubmit State cure. First count plead not guilty; intention steal\ntreasure admitted but did not succeed.\"\n\nFiona, in her new-found humility, had been listening to what the\ncreature with the head was saying. And suddenly it dawned on her that,\nall through, both he and the King had been trying to help her, so far\nas was consistent with their own rules; and that perhaps the creature\nwith the head, for all his oddity, knew what he was doing. She asked\nthe Leprechaun who he was.\n\n\"You might have asked that with advantage before you interrupted him,\"\nsaid the Leprechaun severely. \"He is our Chancellor here. He is the\nKing's most intimate friend, and far the ablest lawyer in Fairyland.\"\n\n\"Defence to first count not admitted,\" the King was saying. \"Your\nclient cannot plead his own bungling of the theft in mitigation of his\nwrongdoing. Only the intention counts here.\"\n\nThe Chancellor looked immensely relieved at the King's words, though\nit passed Fiona's wit to see why.\n\n\"Apply formal ruling,\" he said. \"Take down,\" this to Whitecap.\n\n\"I hold that nothing counts here but the intention,\" said the King.\n\n\"Majesty pleases,\" said the Chancellor. \"Settles point. Retire defence\nthis prisoner. Submit excellent point younger client.\"\n\n\"We will pass sentence here first,\" said the King. \"Jeconiah P.\nJohnson, your counsel has very properly thrown up his brief. You are\nconvicted of stealing a treasure, and it is admitted that you are a\nworthless character. On the first count, I sentence you to be handed\nover to the executioner to be extended until you become a proper size.\nIf you survive, you will then undergo, as offered by your counsel, the\nState cure at the hands of the State hypnotizer.\" He turned to the\nChancellor. \"Any further submission?\"\n\nFiona had gone over to the stack of books, and bent down over the\nlittle creature with the head.\n\n\"I have made a most terrible mistake,\" she said, in a low voice. \"I\nhave spoilt everything. I see that you are kind; can you help us?\"\n\n\"Should have come me first,\" said the creature, quite gently. \"Tried\nattract attention. Never neglect anyone merely because odd and ugly.\nMay have good heart. Sad mess now; but think see daylight. Any\ninfluence that boy?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Fiona eagerly.\n\n\"Right,\" said the creature. \"Make boy wish. Now follow my argument.\"\nAnd he turned to the King.\n\n\"Please Majesty submit good point. Majesty just ruled nothing counts\nhere but intention. Younger prisoner no intention hurt shore lark;\ntherefore on Majesty's ruling same as if did not hurt it. Therefore\nnever was guilty. Human prisoner adjudged not guilty is just same as\nif came here own free will; so held Majesty's father\"; and by some\nextraordinary trick he got the top book open and flopped down among\nthe leaves, from which position he read out bits of an ancient\njudgment. \"Consequently younger prisoner both entitled and bound\nwish.\"\n\nThe King consulted Whitecap.\n\n\"It seems a sound chain of reasoning,\" he said. Then he turned to the\nPublic Prosecutor. \"Have you anything to urge against it?\"\n\n\"Only that, if he wishes wrong, we can't detain him, because of the\nyoung lady's wish,\" said that official.\n\n\"Daniel come judgment,\" cried the Chancellor triumphantly. \"Heads win,\ntails can't lose. Younger prisoner wish.\"\n\nHe turned to Fiona and whispered to her, \"Mind he wishes right.\"\n\nFiona started to go over to the Urchin; instantly the guard crossed\ntheir spears before her.\n\n\"No interference allowed with anyone who is going to wish,\" said the\nofficer.\n\nThen she tried to call to him, and found that she could not speak. It\nwas like a nightmare. She looked helplessly at the Chancellor; he\nnodded, and spelt on his fingers the word \"think.\"\n\nThen Fiona understood what he had meant by asking her if she had any\ninfluence over the Urchin. She knew that she had a good deal; and bits\nof conversations with her father came back into her mind. She had made\none bad blunder, and she had to correct it as best she could; and\nwithout more ado she concentrated her whole mind on taking possession\nof the mind of the Urchin. Could it be done at all? And if so could it\nbe done in time?\n\nThe King stretched out his sceptre, and there was silence.\n\n\"The younger prisoner is going to wish,\" said the King. \"Officer!\"\n\nAnd immediately there appeared in the middle of the ring six great\nboxes, old sea chests made of Spanish chestnut, battered and stained\nand clamped with bands of iron; and on each was the picture, half\nobliterated by time and salt water, of the Madonna of the Holy Cross.\nThe officer flung back the lids, and showed each chest full to the\nbrim of glittering golden doubloons.\n\n\"That is the treasure from the Venetian galleon which you were\nseeking,\" said the King. \"We removed it long ago into our safe\ncustody, lest it should tempt men; but it would seem that it tempts\nthem none the less. Now wish.\"\n\nThe Urchin, his eyes bulging out of his head, stared at the shining\ngold. He murmured \"gun,\" but fortunately so low that the King did not\nhear him.\n\nFiona kept her eyes fixed hard on the boy, and bent every effort of\nmind and will to the one thought, that he must wish as she wished. If\nonly he would turn round. She had already lost sight of the fairies;\nshe now lost sight of the King; she was conscious only of the abject\nwretched creature that was Jeconiah, and of the back of the Urchin's\nhead. He was still staring at the gold, but he had not yet spoken;\nthat was to the good, and--no, it was not fancy--his ears were turning\npink, as they always did when he was in a difficulty. Then he began to\nshuffle his feet uneasily. Fiona felt that every atom of life and\nforce in her was being concentrated on that one act of will; she did\nnot think she could go through with it many seconds longer, or she\nwould collapse. And then the Urchin turned his head toward her; his\nface was scarlet, and his eyes were wavering before the fixed gaze of\nher own; he _must_ do as she wished. She flung everything into one\nsupreme effort--the last reserves which no one thinks they possess\ntill utter necessity teaches them the contrary; and then the Urchin\nspoke, in a strange voice and all in one breath:\n\n\"I want my uncle to go free.\"\n\nFiona's will let go with a snap; she felt so dizzy that she had to\nlean against one of the great toadstools or she would have fallen.\nRound the assemblage ran a sound like the wind through the tree tops,\nthe noise of thousands drawing in breath at once; and the Chancellor\nstarted a war dance on his stack of books, and nearly fell off on his\nhead. The King rose from his throne, but he took no notice of the\nUrchin; he turned straight to Fiona and bowed to her.\n\n\"My compliments, young lady,\" he said; \"the prettiest piece of\nthought-transference it has ever been our privilege to see. Where did\nyou learn to do it?\"\n\n\"I never learnt,\" stammered Fiona. \"I made a great mistake, as your\nMajesty saw, and something had to be done, and your friend suggested\nthis way.\"\n\n\"You needn't mind having made a mistake,\" said the King. \"If you don't\nmake mistakes sometimes you'll never make anything else. And you have\nmade something else this time with a vengeance. As for you, sirrah\n. . .\" and he shook his fist at the Chancellor.\n\nThe creature snapped all its fingers in reply.\n\n\"Majesty pleases,\" it began triumphantly. \"Duty younger client submit\nnew point arising young lady's action. Client entitled wish. Did not\nwish himself; young lady wished. Therefore client still entitled wish.\nPropose develop point considerable length with authorities.\"\n\nThe King raised his hand.\n\n\"I think I shall have to intervene,\" he said. \"I believe you would\nsubmit points till cockcrow.\"\n\n\"Submit points till next year, if Majesty pleases,\" said the creature,\ngleefully.\n\n\"If these proceedings don't end soon,\" said the King, \"there will be\nno time to dance; and if we didn't dance no one knows what would\nhappen to the world above. Even I don't know that. So as we do not\ngenerally have three human beings here at once, and as substantial\njustice has been done, I propose now to exercise the royal prerogative\nof generosity. Jeconiah P. Johnson, you will, as requested, go free,\nso far as we can set you free. We cannot set you free from your own\nworthless character. In order, however, to do the best for you that\ncan be done, before you leave us the State hypnotizer will take you in\nhand and instil into you a few decent feelings. He won't hurt you, and\nyou won't remember. The effect, I fear, will not be permanent, but it\nwill ease our conscience. And as a sign to the world above that we\nhave treated you liberally, you will find that you will be unable to\nattend to business until you have told your nephew a fairy tale.\nUrchin! A doubt exists as to whether you have had your wish or not.\nYou shall have the benefit of the doubt, so far as is good for you.\nYou will find that you will get your gun.\"\n\nAnd then the King turned to Fiona.\n\n\"Young lady,\" he said, \"you have given us a display of courage which\nwe are not likely to forget. You have rescued your friend; you have,\nwhich is much more to the point, rescued your enemy. You have got\n_two_ wishes out of us, which no one ever did before; and you have\nasked nothing for yourself. And now what are we to do for you?\"\n\n\"I think I have everything I want, now, thank your Majesty,\" said\nFiona.\n\n\"Did we not hear talk of a treasure?\" said the King.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Fiona; \"but--I was not thinking about a treasure, your\nMajesty.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said the King. \"But I was; all the time.\"\n\n\"I must leave it all in your Majesty's hands,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"It is not here,\" said the King. \"What you saw was only a pretence.\nAnd we cannot send for it to-night. But if you will honor us sometime\nby returning to our kingdom, we will see what can be done in memory of\nyour visit. Any time you like. And by the front door, please. You will\nrun no risks that way.\"\n\n\"And now,\" said the King, stretching out his sceptre over the great\nthrong, \"we will dance.\" He turned to Fiona and the Urchin. \"It will\nbe a little while before Mr. Johnson is ready to accompany you home,\"\nhe said. \"Perhaps you will honor us meanwhile by attending the dance\nalso.\"\n\nSo the fairies danced before the King; and the fairy ring whirled and\nblazed with the color of them, till it was gayer than a gorse-bank in\nblossom, and brighter than a swarm of dragon-flies on a June\ngrass-field, and more vivid than a fall of shooting stars; and the\nmusic that they made was wilder than the wind in the strings of a\nharp, and sweeter than the blackbird's song, and dearer than all the\nburns on the moor murmuring in unison. And the two children sat at the\nKing's feet on the steps of the beryl throne and watched the dancers;\nand the Chancellor sat between them, and held Fiona's hand, and told\nthem such stories as they had never heard before, till between\nlaughter and tears they nearly fell off the steps of the throne, and\nthe Chancellor laughed and cried with them for sheer joy in his own\nstory-telling; and if there were three happier people in the world\nthat night I do not know where they were. And the night itself passed\naway as a dream that men dream, and its hours seemed to them but as a\nfew minutes--and then across the music and the dance cut the shrill\nharsh scream of a peacock as he greeted the day. The children saw the\nKing rise from his throne and stretch his sceptre out over the ring;\nand the ring and the dancers were shrouded in a white mist which rose\nfrom the ground and wreathed its arms about them; and the beryl throne\ndissolved in mist, and the figure of the King above them, pointing,\ngrew dim and huge, and spread and grew, a purple shadow that hung over\nthem, . . . and they were standing alone in the fairy ring on\nGlenollisdal, under the purple sky, with the white mist wreathing\nitself about their feet, and the pale November dawn coming slowly up\nout of the sea.\n\nDid the Urchin fling himself on the grass at Fiona's feet and thank\nher in broken accents for all she had done for him? I regret to state\nthat the first thing which the Urchin did was to feel in his pocket\nand draw out the doubloon which he had found in the cave.\n\n\"I've got this one, anyhow, Fiona,\" he said. \"But I wonder how I'm\ngoing to get that gun.\"\n\nThen something seemed to prick him; he began to look uncomfortable and\nshuffle his feet, while his ears turned pink; and at last he managed\nto blurt out:\n\n\"I say, Fiona, it was jolly decent of you, you know.\"\n\nFiona only smiled, the wise smile of perfect understanding.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat morning the doctor was hastily summoned with the news that\nJeconiah was awake. The nurse met him in the passage, wide-eyed and\nrather frightened.\n\n\"He's so strange,\" she said.\n\n\"Tut, tut,\" said the doctor; \"told you he might wake like that. Kind\nof change in personality? Just so. Often happens. Seldom permanent\nthough. What's he done?\"\n\n\"Well, doctor, of course we all know Mr. Johnson's reputation,\" said\nthe nurse. \"He's thanked me three times, and hoped I didn't tire\nmyself; and he had all the servants up and said he'd see their wages\nwere raised, and the cook gave notice on the spot because she said she\ndidn't like practical jokes; and he says he wants to go out and gather\nbuttercups and daisies, and play with the little frogs; and he's sent\nfor some old gun that he says he's got to buy for his nephew; and he\nhasn't opened any of the telegrams that have been waiting for him; he\nsays he mayn't attend to business till he has learnt a fairy tale, and\nhe's had the library ransacked, and he's tearing his hair because\nthere's no such thing in it.\"\n\n\"Oh, well,\" said the doctor, \"we must just have patience, nurse. I\nexpected something of the sort. Just humor him; if you can't find a\nfairy tale, try him with a history book; he'll never know the\ndifference; and I'll send him up a nice soothing mixture. Very\ninteresting case; ve-ry interesting.\"\n\nAnd the doctor, calling up his best professional smile, bustled into\nJeconiah's room.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was the same afternoon, a still afternoon of Indian summer, that\nthe old hawker, accompanied again by the black terrier, was going down\nthe shore road. He must have had business at the cottage on the beach.\nBut his business was probably not urgent; for he stopped to watch with\ninterest a group on the shore. It consisted of Jeconiah and the\nUrchin, and they sat on the little patch of sand at the mouth of the\nburn. The Urchin had across his knees the rusty old gun bought for him\nby Jeconiah, who had nevertheless exacted the doubloon from him in\nexchange. He fingered the gun lovingly, while he gazed with\nundisguised impatience at the proceedings of his uncle. Jeconiah's\ncoat lay on the grounds beside a sheaf of unopened telegrams, and he\nwas putting the finishing touches to a noble castle of sand; its\ndrawbridge was supported by his double watch chain, and its turrets\nbore a suspicious resemblance in contour to the inside of his hat. He\npatted his work and gazed at it with pride.\n\n\"Fine, isn't it?\" he said.\n\n\"You'd better hurry up with that fairy tale,\" said the boy. \"If you've\ngot to, you've got to, you know; and you won't keep me much once I get\nsome cartridges.\"\n\nJeconiah began to look alarmed.\n\n\"But I haven't found one yet,\" he said, and glanced anxiously at the\npile of telegrams.\n\n\"Make one up, then,\" said the boy. \"Anybody can do it.\"\n\nThus adjured, Jeconiah started.\n\n\"Once upon a time there was a very grizzly old bear, and he lived in a\nbeautiful place called Capel Court, and he used to hunt the wild bulls\nand the stags and the poor little guinea pigs that abounded in that\nsalubrious locality. And there were two young ladies there, called\nCora and Dora. . . .\"\n\n\"Are those the princesses?\" asked the boy.\n\n\"No, I think not,\" said Jeconiah. \"They were of quite ordinary stock.\nWell, the old bear thought they were too high and mighty, and that he\nwould like to take them down a point or two. . . .\"\n\n\"Oh, this won't do,\" said the Urchin rudely. \"This isn't a _real_\nfairy tale at all. You must do something better than that.\"\n\nThe wretched Jeconiah groaned, and looked again at his telegrams. Then\nhe started afresh.\n\n\"Once upon a time there was a great dragon with seven heads, and he\nate seven princesses every day for dinner. . . .\"\n\n\"That's better,\" said the boy, encouragingly, as he settled himself to\nlisten.\n\nThe old hawker resumed his walk.\n\n\"They haven't made a very good job of him, after all,\" he remarked\naloud, apparently to the terrier. \"But I expect that sort is\nincurable.\"\n\nWas it a flicker of sunlight? Or did the black terrier really wink?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nFIONA FINDS HER TREASURE\n\n\nAnd Fiona?\n\nFiona sat on the hearthrug in the bookroom, and told her father the\nwhole story from beginning to end, as it has been told here. And\nsometimes he asked a question, and sometimes he said, \"Yes, that would\nbe so,\" and sometimes he stroked her hair and said nothing. And when\nshe had ended, he said, \"So you never found your own treasure after\nall, Fiona?\"\n\nShe said, \"I suppose I can have it now, if I go back.\"\n\n\"Do you think you will go back?\" he asked.\n\nShe replied with another question.\n\n\"Have you found out what my treasure is, daddy?\"\n\n\"I believe I could guess,\" he answered. \"But you have found a good\nmany things already, apart from treasure, haven't you, little\ndaughter?\"\n\nShe sat silent and looked into the fire.\n\n\"I suppose I have,\" she said.\n\n\"We won't enumerate them,\" said the Student. \"It spoils things\nentirely, sometimes, to put them into words. But I will tell you\nsomething an old writer once said. He was talking of that particular\nkind of treasure which men call Truth; and he said that if he were\noffered Truth itself on the one hand, and the everlasting search for\nit on the other hand, he would choose the search. I expect you can\nunderstand that now; for you have seen what has happened to you over\nyour own search.\"\n\n\"I think I can understand,\" said Fiona. \"I must be growing older,\ndaddy.\"\n\n\"You'll be too old soon to go back to Fairyland at all, little\ndaughter,\" said the Student. \"If you are going, you will have to go at\nonce.\"\n\n\"What do you think, daddy?\" she questioned.\n\n\"I can only tell you that, in my case, I went back,\" the Student\nanswered.\n\n\"Why, daddy, have you been in Fairyland too?\" cried Fiona. \"And you\nnever told me.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the Student. \"Even a musty old scholar like myself was\nyoung once, you know,\" and he looked into the fire with eyes which\nseemed to see things very, very far away. \"It was not quite the same\nas the Fairyland you have been in, Fiona; but we called it Fairyland.\"\n\n\"Can't you come back with me if I go daddy?\" asked the girl.\n\n\"I'm too old now, little daughter,\" he said. \"For good or for bad, I\ncould never find the way again. I can only see it now through your\neyes. I'll come as far as the door with you, and that's all that an\nold man can do. I suppose you know where the door is?\"\n\n\"I never felt there was any doubt,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"Then we'll start first thing to-morrow, if it's calm enough,\" he\nsaid.\n\nBut that evening was the last of the golden autumn; and when Fiona\nwoke in the morning, the Isle of Mist was justifying its name. The\nsouthwest gale was raging round the house like a live animal, seizing\nit and shaking it, and wailing in the chimneys pitifully, like an\nunburied ghost; and before the gale the long lead-colored rollers were\nracing in from the Atlantic, smashing themselves on the crags and\nshooting up heavenward in columns of spray thrice the height of the\ncliffs, while the noise of the surf in the Scargill cave came booming\nacross the water like the roar of a battleship's guns. The hills were\nall shrouded in mist, and the mist was fine salt rain that rolled in\nfrom the sea, driving in billows over the moor and across the fields;\nthe gulls were tossed about in it like little bits of waste paper, and\nevery green thing on the island opened its heart to the rain and drank\ntill it could drink no more. Toward evening Fiona and the Student, in\noilskins and sou'-westers, went down to the rocks and out seaward as\nfar as was possible, and there stood, unable to speak for the noise.\nThey balanced themselves against the gusts, and felt the tingling\ndrops of salt spray rattle like hail off their coats, while they\nwatched the cliff waterfalls, unable to fall for the wind, go straight\nup heavenward in clouds of smoke, and the sea foam and tear at the\nrocks below; and once for a moment the cloud-mist parted, and the\nhills started out, their dark sides all gashed and seamed with white\nstreaks where every tiny runlet and burn was rushing in spate down\ntoward the sea. Fiona managed to shout, with her clear young voice,\n\"No one can really love this island who only knows it in summer;\" and\nthen they went home, out of the dusk and the lashing of the wet wind,\nto the quiet bookroom and tea things, and lamps, and books; for man\nmay love Nature, but he loves still better the contrast between Nature\nand the things which he has fashioned for himself.\n\nFor three weeks the wind blew; and though there were days when the\nsea-mist lifted, there was no day on which the sea was calm enough for\nthe launching of their small boat. Then one afternoon came change. The\nwarm air turned chill, and the warm rain became sleet; that night the\nwind backed to the north, and next day was a blizzard of snow. And the\nnight after the wind fell away, and the snow ceased, and Orion and his\ntwo dogs shone huge in a frosty sky; and Fiona woke to the glories of\na scarlet sunrise on a great field of white.\n\n\"We must hurry, daddy,\" she said. \"It's perfectly calm.\"\n\n\"It's a pet day,\" said the Student, sniffing the air. \"It won't last;\nthe wind backed too suddenly. But it's all right till sunset.\"\n\nDirectly breakfast was over they launched the little boat, and\nstarted. The snow shone white in the sunshine, and the calm sea\nagainst the snow was as blue as a blue lotus; but the shadows on the\nsnow were a wonder, and the woven complexity of their colorings would\nhave taxed every hue on an artist's palette. So they pulled down and\ninto the cave, at whose mouth the great bluff looked barer and blacker\nthan ever against the world's whiteness; and they grounded their boat\nand climbed the rock barrier. There the Student sat down and filled\nand lit his pipe.\n\n\"This is as far as I can go,\" he said. \"If I mistake not, you will\nfind that they have opened the door for you.\"\n\nSo Fiona went on to the recess where the Urchin had found the\ndoubloon, and where the torch had been smashed in her father's hand;\nand the solid wall of the cliff had opened, and there was an archway\nleading into the black vaulting of the long cave behind. Fiona passed\nthrough into the darkness . . . and the darkness parted to right and\nleft of her, and she stood again in the fairy ring where she had stood\non All Hallows E'en.\n\nBut how changed. Of all the bright throng of fairies that had\nclustered round it, not one stood there to-day. The circle of scarlet\ntoadstools was broken down and shattered, as though by a great storm;\nand the ring itself was no longer grass, but was covered deep in snow.\nOf all the things she had seen there that evening, only one remained.\nThe beryl throne still stood lonely in the midst of the bare ring; and\non the throne sat the King of the Fairies. His face rested on his\nhand, as though he were deep in thought; his eyes were looking at\nsomething far away. On the steps of the throne sat the Chancellor, the\nKing's inseparable friend; and he, too, was deep in thought. It was a\nview of the fairy world which Fiona had never expected.\n\nThe King must have heard her step, for he rose from his throne and\ncame down to meet her.\n\n\"Have you come for your treasure, Fiona?\" he said.\n\nAnd she said, \"I have come because you asked me to come back.\"\n\nThe King held out his sceptre to her; and again the mist came up from\nthe ground and enwrapped the beryl throne, and the figures of the\nKing and the Chancellor wavered and became dim before her. _Were_ they\nthe King and the Chancellor? Was not what she saw, so dim through the\nmist, the figures of the shepherd who had helped her on Glenollisdal\nand his black collie? But the mist was wavering again about them, and\nagain all was a blur; and then the mist suddenly cleared, and there\nwas no one there at all but just the old hawker and the little terrier\nwhich followed him.\n\n\"So you were the King of the Fairies all the time,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"All the time,\" said the old man gently. \"We go about in the world as\nyou see us. And some still entertain angels unaware. Have you come for\nyour treasure, Fiona?\"\n\nAnd this time Fiona answered, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"You have earned it,\" said the King. \"And you have found much more\nthan any treasure. Your father has told you that?\"\n\nAnd again Fiona said, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"I cannot really give you your treasure,\" said the King, \"for you\nhave it already. I think you have had it all the time; but you did not\nknow. But now you have learnt.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Fiona. \"But I think I can guess now.\"\n\n\"It is the spirit of the island which you love,\" said the King, \"and\nwhich henceforth loves you. You have spoken face to face with bird and\nbeast and with the beings who knew and loved the land before your race\nwas. To-day you have the freedom of the island, and of all living\nthings in it; they are your friends forever. And to the dead in its\ngraveyards you are kin. All that is there has passed into your blood,\nthe old lost loves, the old impossible loyalties, the old forgotten\nheroisms and tendernesses; all these are yours; and yours are the\nsongs that were sung long ago, and the tales which were told by the\nfireside; and the deeds of the men and women of old have become part\nof you. You can walk now through the crowded city and never know it,\nfor the wind from the heather will be about you where you go; you can\nstand in the tumult of men and never hear them, for round you will be\nthe silence of your own sea. That is the treasure of the Isle of Mist;\nthe island has given you of its soul. You have found greater things\nalready; you will find greater things yet again. But such as it is, it\nis the best gift which we of the fairy world have to give.\"\n\n\"And now,\" continued the King, \"you will not see us again. And I will\ntake back the bracelet. It would be no further use to you, for you are\nno longer a child. You are too old for Fairyland.\"\n\n\"But my father could see you,\" said Fiona.\n\n\"He could only see me as I really am through your eyes,\" said the\nKing. \"It may be that some day you too will see me again through the\neyes of a child. But for the present it is farewell.\"\n\nSo Fiona stooped down and stroked the little dog, who looked at her\nwith wistful eyes, and took her farewell of the King; and the King\nraised his hand, and the mist rose again and enwrapped the fairy ring\nand those in it . . . and Fiona walked out through the archway into\nthe cave, and there sat the Student on the rock barrier, just as she\nhad left him, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. And even as she came\nto him there was a noise behind her, and when she looked round it was\nto see the archway blocked by a great fall of rock.\n\n\"You will not use that way again, little daughter,\" said the Student.\n\n\"I shall not use any way again now, daddy,\" she said. \"I am too old.\nBut oh, daddy, it has been worth it.\"\n\nThen they launched their boat and paddled slowly out of the cave, out\nof the dark into daylight; and before them lay the quiet sea bathed in\nthe winter sun, and the Isle of Mist dreaming under its mantle of\nwhite.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\n_A Selection from the\nCatalogue of_\n\nG. P. PUTNAM'S SONS\n\n[Illustration]\n\nComplete Catalogues sent\non application\n\n\n\n\nTHE MOON POOL\n\nBY A. MERRITT\n\nRomance, real romance, and wonderful adventure,--absolutely\nimpossible, yet utterly probable! A story one almost regrets having\nread, since one can then no longer read it for the first time. Once in\nthe proverbial blue moon there comes to the fore an author who can\nconceive and write such a tale. Here is one!\n\nFew indeed will forget, who, with the Professor, watch the mystic\napproach of the Shining One down the moon path,--who follow with him\nand the others the path below the Moon Pool, beyond the Door of the\nSeven Lights;--and would there were more characters in fiction like\nLakla the lovely and Larry O'Keefe the lovable.\n\nPerhaps you readers will know who were those weird and awe-inspiring\nSilent Ones.\n\n\nG. P. PUTNAM'S SONS\nNEW YORK      LONDON\n\n\n\n\nVisions and Beliefs in\nthe West of Ireland\n\nBy Lady Gregory\n\nWith Two Essays and Notes by W. B. Yeats\n_Two Volumes. 12o_\n\n\nTo those who have felt the haunting charm that inheres in the Celtic\nconsciousness of an imminent supernaturalism, this collection of Irish\nfancy, belief, and folk-lore, gathered from the lips of the people\nwith patient and reverent care, will have particular value. It has\ninterest as an exceptionally thorough and representative study of\npsychic sensitiveness in Ireland, and the slightness of the barrier\nbetween worlds seen and unseen.\n\n\nG. P. Putnam's Sons\nNew York      London\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Substance\nof a Dream\n\nBy F. W. Bain\n\n\n\"In this new and wholly charming Hindu story a very old world speaks\nto us, but one that has not lost its childhood with age and\nsophistication. It is a world of innocent voluptuousness where passion\nis not contrary to faith but is itself faith.\n\n\"Mr. Bain's people have character, as there are colors in moonlight, a\ncharacter with a common beauty in all its diversities; and because of\nits utter and inner harmony, this creation of his has a very rare\nbeauty.\"\n\n\nG. P. Putnam's Sons\nNew York      London\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the\noriginal edition have been corrected.\n\nIn Chapter II, a quotation mark was deleted after \"the love of worms\nwas the root of all evil\".\n\nIn Chapter III, a quotation mark was added after \"if you could wait a\nfew minutes . . .\".\n\nIn Chapter IV, _said Fiona,\" and you wriggle so.\"_ was changed to\n_said Fiona, \"and you wriggle so.\"_, and _\"Urchin,\" she shouted;\n\"Urchin.'_ was changed to _\"Urchin,\" she shouted; \"Urchin.\"_\n\nIn Chapter V, quotation marks were added after \"Go up a hill.\" and\n\"the true cave at all.\"","title":"The Treasure of the Isle of Mist","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":33242}